// .  3 .  // 


(^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 


Purchased   by  the  Hamill   Missionary   Fund. 


BV  3415  .L5  1911 

Johnston,  Reginald  Fleming, 

1874-1938. 
A  Chinese  appeal  to 

Christendom  concerninQ 


A     CHINESE    APPEAL 
TO     CHRISTENDOM 

CONCERNING 

CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS 


BY 

LIN  SHAO-YANG 


Svr    ~?\  ,F,    JonriS 


^ 


0^ 


*      NOV   3  1911 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

Icnicfserbocfset  press 
1911 


Copyright,  xgii 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


JSbc  Ittitofterbocfiet  ttcw,  flew  fiorfe 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.      THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

AND  MISSIONARY  ACTIVITY         .            .            .  I 

II.      THE  PROSPECTS     OF    CHRISTIANITY     IN    THE 

FAR  EAST                    21 

III.  MISSIONARIES  AND  THEIR  METHODS        .            .  40 

IV.  MISSIONARY  MOTIVES,  THE  CHINESE  CHARAC- 

TER, AND  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  YOUNG  CHINA  56 

V.      RELIGIOUS  TOLERANCE  IN  CHINA  .  -71 

VI.      MONASTICISM  IN  CHINA,  CHRISTIAN  INTOLER- 
ANCE ,  AND  THE  CONVERSION  OF  ABORIGINES  8 1 

VII.      REVIVALIST  METHODS  IN  CHINA   ...  98 

VIII.      EMOTIONAL  RELIGION            .            .            .            .  II4 

IX.      THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  AND  A  PERSONAL  DEVIL  1 30 

X.      CHRISTIAN  DEMONOLOGY     .  .  .  -145 

XI.      HELL  AND  THE  DAMNATION  OF  THE  HEATHEN  1 58 

XII.      PRAYER,  FAITH,  AND  TELEPATHY  .  .173 

XIII.      SCIENCE  AND  PRAYER            .             .             .             •  19^ 

XIV.      CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  SOCIAL  PREJUDICES   .  212 


IV  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

XV.      THE  SABBATH 228 

XVI.      RELIGION,  MAGIC,  AND  WORD-SPELLS  \            .  238 

XVII.      CHURCHES,  CHURCH-BELLS,  AND  HYMNS           .  253 

XVIII.      EASTERN  AND  WESTERN  CIVILISATION,  META- 

MORPHIC  CHRISTIANITY,  AND  BIBLIOLATRY .  273 

XIX.      WESTERN    EDUCATION    IN    CHINA    AND    THE 

UNITED  UNIVERSITIES  SCHEME           .            .  29O 

INDEX     .            .            .            .            .            ,            .  313 


A  CHINESE  APPEAL 
TO    CHRISTENDOM 

CONCERNING 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS 


A 

CHINESE  APPEAL 

TO 

CHRISTENDOM 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  AND 
MISSIONARY   ACTIVITY 

WESTERN  residents  in  the  Far  East  are  never 
weary  of  emphasising  the  strangeness  and  in- 
accessibility of  the  Oriental  mind.  We  Chinese,  more 
especially,  are  continually  hearing  ourselves  criticised 
as  insoluble  puzzles.  *'The  European  who  can  under- 
stand the  Chinese  character,'*  said  one  who  had  spent 
forty  years  in  the  East,  ''has  not  been  bom  into  this 
world."  Our  Western  guests  may  like  us  or  dislike 
us,  they  may  magnify  our  failings  or  they  may  speak 
enthusiastically  of  our  merits,  but  they  will  one  and  all 
declare  with  emphasis  that  we  are  inscrutable.  Very 
few  seem  to  guess  that  we  Chinese  may  have  the  same 
difficulty  in  understanding  the  West  that  they  have  in 
understanding  the  East;  yet  surely  it  should  strike 
them  as  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  if  the  Oriental 


2     Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

mind  is  opaque  to  them  the  Occidental  can  be  wholly 
transparent  to  us.  If  I  may  presume,  indeed,  to  regard 
myself  as  an  average  representative  of  my  race,  I  may 
say  with  confidence  that  the  Chinese  find  much  that  is 
baffling  and  mysterious  in  Western  thought,  Western 
character,  and  Western  ideals.  After  a  boyhood  and 
youth  spent  in  the  other  hemisphere  I  returned  to 
China  with  a  far  more  serious  doubt  about  my  capacity 
to  interpret  Western  modes  of  thought  to  my  fellow- 
countrymen  than  when,  as  a  mere  child,  I  went  back 
to  the  bosom  of  my  family  after  my  first  brief  visit  to 
one  of  the  great  European  settlements  on  the  Chinese 
coast. 

But  it  is  not  my  intention  in  these  pages  to  discuss 
the  question  of  whether  there  be  indeed  some  natural 
law  that  has  set  up  an  impenetrable  barrier  between 
East  and  West.  I  wish  only  to  draw  attention  to  one 
sphere  of  Western  activity  that  denotes  an  attitude  of 
mind  which  we  Chinese  often  discuss  among  ourselves, 
and  which  none  of  us  has  ever  been  able  fully  to 
understand  or  to  explain.  I  refer  to  the  work  of  the 
Christian  missions. 

Lest  I  should  be  grievously  misunderstood,  I  must 
hasten  to  explain  that  many  of  us  non-Christian  Chi- 
nese have  a  fair  knowledge  of  your  sacred  books,  and  are 
acquainted  with  the  more  obvious  reasons  (including  the 
alleged  commands  of  the  founder  of  Christianity)  that 
impel  you  to  send  missionaries  to  convert  us  to  your 
faith.  What  puzzles  us  is  not  merely  that  you  should 
desire  to  spread  your  religion  among  the  people  you 
call  heathen,  nor  that  you  should  be  willing  to  devote 
time,  money,  and  personal  service  to  this  work,  nor  even 
that  your  missionaries  should  be  willing  to  die  for  the 
cause  that  to  them  is  sacred :  all  these  things  we  Orien- 
tals can  to  some  extent  understand.    What  we  wonder 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity     3 

at  is  that  your  missionary  zeal  should  not  only  remain 
unabated,  but  should  actually  show  signs  of  increasing 
activity  during  an  epoch  which  is  obviously  one  of  re- 
ligious unrest  throughout  all  Christian  lands,  and  in 
which  historical  research  and  scientific  methods  of 
criticism  have  caused  the  gravest  doubts  to  be  thrown 
on  the  truth  of  some  of  the  fundamental  propositions  of 
the  Christian  faith.  A  garrisoned  city  does  not  send 
away  the  flower  of  its  troops  when  a  powerful  enemy  is 
thundering  at  its  gates.  A  king  whose  throne  is  shaken 
by  insurrection  within  his  own  dominions  and  whose 
capital  is  being  plundered  by  rebels  does  not  send  his 
most  loyal  soldiers  on  adventurous  expeditions  to 
foreign  lands.  It  seems  strange  to  those  of  us  who  are 
familiar  with  the  religious  situation  in  Europe  that, 
while  unbelief  is  rapidly  spreading  among  all  classes  of 
their  own  people,  missionaries  yet  go  forth  in  ever-in- 
creasing numbers  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  heathen. 
Do  they  propose  to  convert  China  and  then  wait  for 
the  Chinese  to  re-convert  the  West? 

Perhaps  few  things  are  more  astonishing  to  the  ob- 
servant Chinese  student  when  he  visits  a  Western 
country  than  his  discovery  that  a  very  great  number 
— if  not  the  majority — of  the  educated  men  with  whom 
he  comes  in  contact  have  either  renounced  Christianity 
altogether  or  have  remained  within  the  Christian  fold 
only  from  motives  of  expediency,  perhaps  through 
mere  habit  or  indifference,  or  because  they  believe  in 
the  social  value  of  the  Church  of  their  country  as  a  con- 
stituent element  in  the  national  life.  The  next  signifi- 
cant discovery  he  makes  is  that  his  rationalist,  agnostic, 
and  freethinking  acquaintances  are  just  as  well-behaved 
and  high-principled  as  the  most  orthodox  of  believers. 
A  recent  writer  in  Christian  Scotland,  himself  a  believer, 
admits  that  "there  is  at  present  a  widespread  alienation 


4      Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

from  the  Christian  faith.  "^  Canon  Henson  of  West- 
minster sorrowfully  observes  that  ''Christianity  no 
longer  holds  the  supreme  position  which  for  centuries 
it  has  held  in  the  thought  of  civilised  men."^  Prof. 
Henry  Jones  says,  "there  is  a  seething  of  religious  be- 
liefs and  a  lawless  raging  of  social  forces  the  Hke  of  which 
has  probably  not  been  seen  before. "  That  some  of  the 
acutest  intellects  of  the  English  universities  are  gravely 
heterodox  in  religious  matters  is  a  truth  that  hardly 
requires  emphasis.  The  works  of  such  distinguished 
writers  as  Dr.  McTaggart,  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, would  certainly  not  be  allowed  to  see  the  light 
if  their  pubHcation  were  dependent  on  an  ecclesiastical 
imprimatur.^  One  of  the  most  able  and  most  damaging 
of  recent  criticisms  of  historical  Christianity  comes  from 
the  pen  of  one  who  has  been  the  fellow  and  prselector  of 
an  Oxford  college,  and  whose  biblical  researches  have 
earned  him  an  honorary  doctorate  of  theology  from 
Giessen.  ^  Another  Oxford  tutor  declares  that  the  hold 
of  Christianity  on  educated  young  Enghshmen  was 
never  weaker  than  it  is  to-day.  ^  A  third  Oxford  thinker, 
Mr.  H.  Sturt,  who  has  lost  the  honour  of  persecution 
through  being  born  a  few  generations  too  late,  has  re- 
cently published  a  book  in  which  he  holds  that,  in  spite 
of  the  poetry  and  beauty  of  much  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  the  ethical  nobleness  of  the  teachings  ascribed  to 
Jesus,  "of  all  the  terrible  intellectual  disasters  of  Europe 
the  Bible  has  been  by  far  the  greatest.''     He  believes 

^  Dr.  Pearson  McAdam  Muir,  in  Modern  Substitutes  for  Christi- 
anity. 

2  The  Liberty  of  Prophesying  (London:  Macmillan  &  Co.). 

3  See  especially  his  admirable  work,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion  (Lon- 
don: Edward  Arnold,  1906). 

4 1  refer  to  Mr.  F.  C.  Conybeare's  Myth,  Magic,  and  Morals  (London: 
Watts  &  Co.,  1909). 

s  H.  W.  Garrod,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Merton  College,  in  The  Religion 
of  All  Good  Men. 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity      5 

that  ''the  ideal  of  life  which  Christianity  impHes  is 
contrary  to  the  best  tendencies  of  the  age;  that  the  re- 
ligion of  Christianity  has  been  superseded  in  the  minds 
of  thinking  men  by  a  new  religious  attitude  which  has 
for  a  long  time  been  growing  up  silently;  that  its  theo- 
logy has  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  our  effective  convic- 
tions, and  has  therefore  ceased  to  be  a  subject  of  rational 
interest;  that  its  scriptures  are  aHen  books  which  have 
no  relation  to  our  national  history  and  character,  and 
have  done  great  harm  by  drawing  the  nation's  thoughts 
away  from  the  record  of  its  own  great  deeds  and  the 
commemoration  of  its  own  heroes." 

One  cannot   take   up   a  serious  journal  nowadays 
without  finding  repeated  references  to  the  present  crisis 
in  Christian  beHef— the  subject  being  variously  treated 
according  to  the  points  of  view  of  different  writers. 
The  Hibbert  Journal— <A  its  kind  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  and  interesting  periodical  published  in  the 
Enghsh  language— opens  its  columns  to  religious  and 
philosophic  writers  of  every  shade  of  belief  and  dis- 
belief, and  a  short  study  of  its  pages  is  enough  to  indi- 
cate how  severely  the  foundations  of  dogmatic  Christi- 
anity have  been  shaken  by  modern  criticism,  and  how 
much  of  the  superstructure  has  already  fallen  into 
decay.     The  Rev.  G.  A.  Johnston  Ross  says  that  the 
evolutionary  idea  ''has  revolutionised  the  presentation 
of  the  Christian  religion.     It  has  almost  fundamentally 
altered  our  view  of  Holy  Scriptures,  of  the  history  it 
contains,    and   of   the   doctrines   it   upholds."^    Mr. 
Lowes  Dickinson— a  writer  who  certainly  cannot  be 
charged   with   being  a   truculent  iconoclast— believes 

^The  Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  pp.  17-18,  303  (The  Walter  Scott  Pub- 
lishing Co.,  Ltd.,  1909;  second  edition,  published  by  Watts  &  Co., 
London). 

*  The  Hibbert  Journal,  July,  1908,  p.  765. 


6     Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

that  no  religion  "which  ought  properly  to  be  called 
Christian  can  adequately  represent  the  attitude  of  an 
intelHgent  and  candid  modern  man.  ...  I  need  hardly 
add  that  a  fortiori  Roman  Catholic  or  Anglican  theo- 
logy is,  in  my  judgment,  incompatible  with  modem 
knowledge.""  The  Rev.  J.  M.  Lloyd  Thomas  ob- 
serves that  "the  imposing  structure  of  dogma  is  every- 
where falling  into  ruin.  It  must  be  added  that  many 
expert  theologians  have  been  for  a  long  time  perfectly 
well  aware  of  the  fact.  But  until  recently  they  have 
more  or  less  successfully  suppressed  the  most  alarming 
symptoms  and  allayed  popular  panic  by  energetic  pro- 
testations that  the  ancient  building  was  still  secure. 
This  pretence  can  continue  no  longer.  The  impending 
collapse  is  obvious  even  to  the  untrained  observer. 
Orthodoxy  has  at  last  been  brought  before  the  tribunal 
of  public  opinion,  and  with  specially  disastrous  results 
for  the  Protestant  religion."^  Writing  in  another 
periodical,  an  English  clergyman  admits  that  the 
results  of  the  historical  criticism  of  the  early  Christian 
documents  "have  brought  about  a  widespread  sceptic- 
ism as  to  the  historicity  of  the  Christian  records.  "^ 
1  It  is  clear  from  such  quotations  as  these  (and  they 
'might  be  multiplied  indefinitely)  that  even  if  an  in- 
quirer were  altogether  to  ignore  the  writings  of  pro- 
fessed disbelievers  and  the  publications  of  such  energetic 
agencies  as  the  Rationalist  Press  Association,  and  were 
to  confine  himself  wholly  to  the  works  of  the  more 
conservative  theological  and  biblical  scholars  and  pro- 
fessors of  Apologetics,  he  would  speedily  be  convinced 
that  the  Christian  dogmas  are  being  assailed  to-day  by 

'  The  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1908,  p.  5i5- 
» Ibid.,  July,  1907,  p.  798. 

3  The  Rev.  W.  B.  Selbie,  in  The  Contemporary  Review,  Feb.,  1909, 
p.  205. 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity     7 

scientific  critics  and  even  by  ethical  reformers  with  a 
vigour  and  success  that  totally  differentiate  the  present 
movement  from  the  various  crises  through  which  the 
Christian  Church  has  passed  in  connection  with  the 
heresies  and  schisms  of  past  centuries.  In  Europe  and 
America  theologians  such  as  Hamack,  Schmiedel, 
Wilhelm  Soltau,  Weinel,  Rudolf  Schmid,  Deissmann, 
Prof.  Wernle  of  Basel,  Loisy,  Le  Roy,  and  numerous 
others,  are,  each  in  his  own  way,  subjecting  the  Christ- 
ian traditions  and  dogmas  to  so  drastic  a  process  of 
attenuation  or  re-interpretation  that  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  the  Christianity  that  survives  their  treatment  can 
consider  itself  entitled  to  the  name  it  continues  to  bear. 
Certainly  it  is  not  the  Christianity  that  is  being 
most  widely  preached  in  China  to-day.  Writers  like  Sir 
OHver  Lodge  and  the  late  Mr.  Hugh  MacColl  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  late  Prof.  James  and  Prof.  Wenley  and 
others  in  America,  have  tried  to  save  what  they  person- 
ally regard  as  the  essential  truths  of  Christianity  by  the 
wholesale  sacrifice  of  much  that  has  hitherto  been  con- 
sidered essential  by  the  accredited  exponents  of  orthodox 
Christian  doctrine.  They,  or  some  of  them,  hope  to  bring 
about  a  reconstruction  of  religious  concepts  on  a  safer 
foundation  than  that  of  historical  evidence,  by  means 
of  the  ethico-reHgious  consciousness  itself.  The  methods 
and  conclusions  of  natural  science  and  the  results  of 
the  historico-critical  investigation  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  have  brought  about — according  to 
Wenley — the  collapse  of  dogmatic  Christianity ;  therefore 
if  Christianity  is  to  be  saved  in  any  shape  at  all  it  must 
rest  on  something  better  than  unverifiable  dogma. ' 
Three  books  on  the  Christian  religion,  written  by 

'See  D.  C.  Macintosh's  review  of  Prof.  R.  M.  Wenley's  Modern 
Thought  and  the  Crisis  in  Belief  (The  Baldwin  Lectures,  1909),  in 
The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  631. 


8   Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

three  American  professors,  were  recently  issued  almost 
on  the  same  date.  "All  three  declare  with  equal  em- 
phasis," says  a  fourth  American  professor  who  wrote 
a  review  of  their  works,  "that  the  Christian  Church  is 
now  confronted  by  a  crisis  of  peculiar  gravity  and 
urgency."'  Still  more  remarkable,  as  a  sign  of  the 
times,  is  the  growth  of  the  New  Theology  in  or  along- 
side of  the  Church  of  England  and  its  Nonconformist 
rivals,  and  the  growth  of  Modernism  in  or  alongside 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  M.  Loisy  and  the  Rev.  R.  J. 
Campbell  are  among  the  leaders  of  movements  which 
threaten  the  citadels  of  Orthodox  Roman  and  Evan- 
gelical Christianity  alike.  Irrespective  of  the  direct 
influence  of  Modernism,  which  is  costing  the  Church 
some  of  her  ablest  and  most  devoted  sons,  Rome  is 
receiving  blow  after  blow  from  every  land  that  has 
hitherto  owned  her  sway.  Those  who  have  perused  Mr. 
J.  McCabe's  important  work  on  The  Decay  of  the  Church 
of  Rome^  are  aware  that  if  his  figures  are  reHable  the 
losses  suffered  by  that  Church  during  the  past  seven 
decades  amount  at  least  to  80,000,000  souls  3;  and  he 
shows  that  of  the  total  of  190,000,000  Romanists  now  in 
the  world  more  than  120,000,000  must  be  classed  as 
ilHterates.  The  majority  of  Catholic  adherents  consist, 
he  tells  us,  of  "American  Indians,  half-castes,  negroes, 
and  mulattoes;  Italian,  Spanish,  Russian,  and  Slavonic 
peasants  of  the  most  backward  character;  and  Indian, 
Indo-Chinese,  and  African  natives.  These  make  up 
much  more  than  half  the  whole.  Further,  the  great 
bulk  of  the  remainder  are  the  peasants  and  poor  workers 
of  Germany,  Austria,  France,  Belgium,  and  Ireland.  "^ 
As  for  France,  once  the  proud  "eldest  daughter  of  the 

^  See  The  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1908,  p.  500. 

2  Published,  in  1909,  by  Messrs.  Methuen  &  Co. 

3  Op.  ciL,  pp.  297  seq.  ^  Op.  ciL,  p.  305. 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity      9 

Church,"  the  number  of  the  faithful  has  fallen  to  no 
more  than  6,000,000  (at  most)  out  of  a  population  of 
39,000,000. '  France  is  no  longer  a  Catholic  nation,  and 
she  has  adopted  no  other  form  of  Christianity.  Simi- 
larly, free-thought  and  anti-clericalism  are  steadily 
increasing  in  all  the  other  so-called  CathoHc  countries 
of  Europe,  including  Spain,  Portugal,  and  Italy.  In 
many  parts  of  those  lands  the  influence  of  the  Church 
has  almost  wholly  vanished,  and  her  priests  are  objects 
of  detestation,  fear,  or  contempt.^ 

Yet  the  missionary  zeal  of  Christendom  in  Asia  and 
other  parts  of  the  ''heathen"  world  was  perhaps  never 
more  active  than  it  is  at  this  day!  The  Chinese,  as 
I  have  said,  cannot  pretend  fully  to  understand  this 
strange  phenomenon.  But  though  as  a  non-Christian 
I  hesitate  to  express  opinions  of  my  own  on  a  subject 
which  concerns  Christian  motives,  I  may  perhaps  ven- 
ture to  call  attention  to  certain  facts  which  may,  par- 
tially at  least,  explain  the  almost  feverish  missionary 
activity  that  is  being  shown  at  present  by  militant 
Christendom. 

It  should  be  remembered,  to  begin  with,  that  numer- 
ous as  are  the  benevolent  people  who  regularly  support 
foreign  missions,  they  form  but  a  minute  fraction  of  the 
population  of  their  respective  countries,  and  that,  vast 
as  is  the  aggregate  amount  of  money  annually  sub- 
scribed for  mission  purposes,  it  is  an  almost  negligible 
trifle  when  compared  with  the  amounts  spent  on  personal 
pleasiu-e  and  luxury.^    As  to  the  soiu-ces  from  which 

^  The  Decay  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  p.  33. 

^  This  was  written  before  the  expulsion  of  the  monks  and  nuns  from 
Portugal. 

3  Referring  to  the  collection  of  mission-funds,  that  able  and  clear- 
sighted observer,  Mr.  Meredith  Townsend,  writes  thus:  "If  we  had  the 
means  of  deducting  the  contributions  of  about  2000  families  who  are 
the  mainstay  of  all  missionary  bodies  and  of  all  charities,  the  amount 


10    Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

funds  are  obtained,  it  may  be  said  that  the  supporters 
of  foreign  missions  are  of  two  classes.  A  great  number 
contribute  to  mission  work  only  through  the  ordinary 
medium  of  church  collections.  They  go  to  church  as  a 
matter  of  weekly  routine,  and  take  with  them  the  sum  of 
money  that  they  are  in  the  habit  of  presenting.  If  the 
collections  for  the  day  are  intended  to  swell  a  hospital- 
fund,  their  shillings  will  go  to  hospitals  accordingly; 
should  the  parson  announce  that  the  collections  will 
go  to  foreign  missions,  their  contributions  will  be  duly 
devoted  to  the  expensive  process  of  saving  heathen  souls. 
In  a  vast  number  of  cases  the  church-member  who  adds 
his  coin  to  the  heap  on  the  offertory  plate  neither  knows 
nor  (perhaps)  very  much  cares  what  the  destination  of 
his  coin  may  be.  He  feels  sure  that  it  will  be  used  for 
a  good  purpose,  and  with  that  assurance  he  is  content. 
The  other  class  of  supporters  of  foreign  missions  con- 
sists of  those  who  happen  to  take  a  keen  personal  inter- 
est in  that  form  of  Christian  activity,  and  deliberately 
devote  money  and  time,  and  perhaps  the  labour  of 
their  own  hands  and  brains,  to  the  advancement  of 
their  favourite  philanthropic  enterprise.  Many  are 
stirred  to  generosity  by  the  thrilling  appeal  of  a  mission- 
ary who  has  returned  to  his  native  land  on  holiday ;  the 
charitable  or  religious  instincts  of  others  are  aroused 
through  reading  the  biographies  of  famous  missionaries 
or  accounts  of  Christian  martyrdoms.  Many  are 
members  of  a  Bible  society  or  of  a  society  for  the  pro- 
pagation of  the  gospel,  and  they  are  constant  readers  of 
missionary  periodicals  in  which  the  moral  and  religious 
condition  of  heathen  lands  is  always  painted  in  sombre 
colours.  The  large  donations  and  bequests  which  so 
frequently  come  to  the  net  of  the  missionary  associa- 

raised  by  the  Churches  would  not  appear  large,  and  it  is  raised  with 
extreme  difficulty"  {Asia  and  Europe,  2nd  ed.,  p.  74). 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity    ii 

tions,  and  without  which  mission  work  could  hardly  be 
carried  on,  are  chiefly  derived  from  warm-hearted  people 
of  this  kind — most  of  them,  though  by  no  means  all, 
being  persons  who  have  never  visited  a  heathen  country, 
and  who  implicitly  accept  the  missionary's  point  of 
view.  Such  persons — the  main  supporters  of  mission- 
ary enterprise,  and  the  class  from  which  missionaries 
themselves  are  chiefly  drawn — are  not,  as  a  rule,  keen 
students  of  the  deeper  problems  of  reHgion  or  philosophy. 
They  have  always  been  Christians,  they  are  perplexed 
by  no  doubts  or  difliculties,  the  higher  criticism  is  a  thing 
they  leave  severely  alone,  "new  theologies"  they  taboo, 
and  the  moral  stumbling-blocks  and  the  historical  in- 
accuracies of  the  Scriptures  they  cheerfully  ignore.  If 
some  book  or  magazine  article  now  and  again  startles 
them  by  a  hint  that  the  religious  situation  is  not  all 
that  it  should  be,  they  are  speedily  consoled  by  the 
soothing  words  of  another,  book  or  another  magazine 
article  which  tells  them  that  the  assaults  of  infidelity  and 
the  critical  investigations  of  scholars  have  resulted  only 
in  establishing  the  truths  of  Christianity  more  firmly 
than  ever,  and  that  it  is  only  knaves  who  preach  agnos- 
ticism or  free- thought,  and  only  fools  who  listen  to  them. 
The  non- Christians  of  their  own  land — those  who  have 
voluntarily  left  the  Christian  fold  because  they  could  no 
longer  conscientiously  remain  within  it — are  classed  by 
them  among  anarchists,  bomb-throwers,  and  enemies 
of  public  and  private  morality.  What  such  wicked 
people  may  have  to  say  for  themselves  they  neither 
know  nor  care  to  be  told.  They  still  have  an  impression 
— more  or  less  definite  according  to  the  sect  or  branch  of 
Christianity  to  which  they  belong — that  the  fires  of  hell 
are  awaiting  the  souls  of  the  unbaptised  heathen,  and 
their  natural  benevolence  incites  them  to  provide  the 
means  of  salvation.     These  are  the  people  who  in  the 


12    Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

last  generation  or  two  have  responded  most  eagerly  to 
the  summons  to  aid  in  the  great  work  of  evangeHsing 
the  heathen.^ 

But  now  we  come  to  what  I  take  to  be  the  principal 
reason  for  the  present  activity  of  foreign  missions  and 
for  the  deep  interest  which  is  beginning  to  be  taken  in 

1 1  may  say  that  personally  I  have  no  objection  to  the  term  "heathen" 
except  in  so  far  as  it  indicates  a  certain  attitude  of  rather  irritating 
contempt  on  the  part  of  the  arrogant  Christian  for  his  non-Christian 
fellow-creatures.  In  itself  the  word  is  harmless  enough,  and  it  is 
less  clumsy  than  "non-Christian."  Both,  of  course,  are  unscientific. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  comparative  religion  it  is  misleading  to  put 
all  the  religions  of  the  world  into  two  classes — Christianity  alone 
occupying  one  class  and  all  other  religions  lumped  together  in  the 
other.  The  curious  thing  is  that  one  rarely  if  ever  hears  the  term 
"heathen"  or  the  term  "pagan"  used  by  Anglo-Saxons  in  China  unless 
they  happen  to  be  missionaries  or  are  in  strong  sympathy  with  mission- 
ary work.  At  the  close  of  a  paper  by  the  veteran  missionary  Dr.  W.  A. 
P.  Martin,  in  which  he  seems  to  advocate  the  peculiar  policy  of  bap- 
tising large  bodies  of  Chinese  en  masse  even  if  they  do  not  understand 
Christian  doctrine,  may  be  found  the  following  remarkable  words: 
"Entire  communities  will  then  come  forward,  impelled  by  a  variety 
of  motives,  of  which  the  shame  of  being  stigmatised  as  'heathen'  may 
prove  to  be  not  the  least  effective"  {The  Chinese  Recorder,  Nov.,  1909, 
p.  627).  There  seems  to  be  a  curious  confusion  of  thought  here. 
"Heathen"  is  simply  a  word  used  by  Christians  to  denominate  non- 
Christians,  and  as  most  Christians  are  arrogant  enough  to  suppose  that 
their  religion  alone  is  true,  the  word  "heathen" — meaning  for  them 
"a  believer  in  false  doctrines" — has  to  their  ears  an  ofifensive  sound. 
But  obviously  the  heathen  himself  does  not  take  the  same  view  of  the 
relative  positions  of  Christianity  and  his  own  faith.  If  he  were  satis- 
fied in  his  own  mind  that  Christianity  is  the  true  religion,  he  would 
ipso  facto  be  a  Christian,  whether  he  publicly  professed  his  adherence 
to  that  faith  or  not;  whereas  if  he  does  not  believe  that  Christianity 
is  true,  but  beheves,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  truth  of  his  own  religion, 
he  cannot  have  the  slightest  objection  to  being  "stigmatised"  as  a  non- 
Christian.  If  he  shows  irritation  at  being  called  a  heathen  it  will  not 
be  because  he  is  "ashamed"  of  being  classed  among  non-Christians, 
but  because  he  knows  that  the  terra  as  used  by  foreigners  is  unchari- 
tably intended  by  them  to  indicate  their  sense  of  his  inferiority  to 
themselves.  [Cf.  Huxley's  Science  and  Christian  Tradition  (Eversley 
Series),  pp.  210  seq.,  240  seq.,  d,  propos  of  Dr.  Wace's  observations  on 
the  "unpleasant  significance"  of  the  word  "infidel."] 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity    13 

the  subject  by  large  numbers  of  people  who  have  hither- 
to regarded  it  with  indifference. 

Great  political  events  have  occurred,  and  are  still 
occurring,  which  tend  to  alter  profoundly  the  old  rela- 
tions between  Europe  and  Asia.  The  Asiatic  peoples 
are  awaking,  or  have  already  awakened,  from  their  long 
slumber,  and  are  showing  themselves  determined  to  take 
their  proper  places  in  the  world  as  independent,  civiHsed, 
and  progressive  nations.  They  have  no  intention  of 
acquiescing  in  the  permanent  superiority  or  dominance 
of  the  great  states  of  the  West,  and  for  this  very  reason 
they  are  keenly  desirous,  at  the  present  time,  of  ac- 
quiring a  knowledge  of  the  arts  and  sciences  which,  as 
they  now  see,  have  so  largely  contributed  to  the  ma- 
terial strength  and  prosperity  of  the  Western  Powers. 
They  do  not  wholly  admire  the  civilisation  of  the  West ; 
in  some  respects  they  regard  it  as  inferior  to  their  own, 
but  they  fully  recognise  the  necessity  of  adapting  to  their 
own  requirements  those  elements  of  the  Occidental  sys- 
tem that  make  for  political  stabiHty,  military  efficiency, 
and  social  welfare.  For  the  time  being,  therefore,  we 
Chinese  have  become  the  willing  pupils  of  the  West. 
Christianity  is  not  one  of  the  characteristics  of  Western 
civilisation  with  which  we  have  specially  asked  to  be 
endowed,  but  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
Christian  Churches  have  eagerly  seized  upon  a  unique 
and  magnificent  opportunity  to  spread  the  gospel  among 
a  vast  heathen  people  that  comprises  more  than  a  fourth 
of  the  world's  population.  Notwithstanding  the  grave 
perils  that  menace  them  at  home,  the  Churches  instinct- 
ively recognise  that  now,  if  ever,  is  the  time  to  plant 
the  Cross  on  the  soil  of  China.  They  realise  that  if 
this  chance  is  allowed  to  slip  by  it  may  never  come 
again ;  but  that  if  the  chance  is  seized,  and  if  the  great 
missionary  enterprise     is  crowned  with  success,  it  is 


14   Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

not  impossible  that  in  the  dim  future  a  Christian 
China  may  help  to  establish  Western  civilisation  on 
a  world-wide  basis  and  revive  and  rejuvenate  the 
decaying  forces  of  Christianity  in  the  Western  hemi- 
sphere. 

Thus  the  point  which  chiefly  concerns  us  here  is  this. 
Until  recent  times  the  sole  or  predominant  motive  of 
missionary  Christianity  in  evangelising  the  East  was 
the  saving  of  heathen  souls  and  the  widening  of  the 
boundaries  of  the  kingdom  of  righteousness.  In  other 
words,  the  aim  of  foreign  missions  was  almost  entirely 
a  reHgious  one  (except  when  it  was  political,  or  definitely 
associated  with  poHtical  designs),  and  therefore  only 
attracted  persons  who  believed  that  without  the  Christ- 
ian faith  the  heathen  would  be  engulfed  in  eternal 
darkness.  But  now  many  people  are  being  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  missionary  work  has  a  sternly 
practical  side  which  deserves  serious  attention  even 
from  those  in  whom  belief  in  dogmatic  Christianity  is 
wholly  dead;  that  in  supporting  foreign  missions  they 
may  be  contributing  to  the  salvation  not  merely  of 
heathen  souls,  but  of  the  whole  fabric  of  Western  civil- 
isation. ^  There  is  a  vague  but  growing  fear  in  the  West 
that  a  trained  and  educated  but  unchristian  China  will 
be  a  constant  menace  to  the  stability  of  Western  insti- 
tutions and  a  danger  to  civilised  mankind.  Thus  the 
character  of  missionary  effort  has  undergone  a  funda- 
mental change.     The  West  now  wishes  to  evangeHse 

^  "Missions  were  begun  when  distant  lands  were  practically  unknown 
and  their  religions  unstudied,  and  all  alike  regarded  as  simply  false 
and  the  dark  products  of  the  Evil  One,  whose  adherents  were  all  morally 
and  irretrievably  ruined  and  exposed  to  a  hopeless  doom.  All  this  is 
changed;  and  missions  have  to  be  continued  with  an  entirely  different 
set  of  ideals  filling  the  popular  mind. " — T.  E.  Slater,  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  in  Missions  and  Sociology,  p.  64  (London:  Elliot 
Stock,  1908). 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity    15 

the  heathen  not  from  altniistic  motives  only,  but  with 
a  view  to  its  own  safety.  ^ 

This  modification  in  the  missionary  attitude  is  not 
avowed  by  the  missionaries  themselves;  indeed,  very 
many  of  them,  as  the  following  chapters  will  show, 
seem  to  be  unaware  that  there  has  been  any  modification 
at  all,  and  regard  the  awakening  of  China  almost  entirely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Christian  philanthropy.  At 
the  Shanghai  Missionary  Conference  of  1907  a  unani- 
mous resolution  was  passed  to  the  effect  that  the  new 
political  and  social  conditions  in  China  now  rendered  it 
possible  for  every  individual  in  the  empire  to  be  told 
of  '*the  redeeming  death  and  resurrection  and  the  heart- 
transforming  power  of  Jesus  Christ";  and  the  Confer- 
ence appealed  ''to  the  whole  Christian  world  to  rise  in 
its  might,  and,  trusting  to  the  guidance  of  Almighty  God, 
realise  more  adequately  its  responsibility  in  this  gigantic 
undertaking.'*  More  recently — at  a  meeting  held  in 
London  under  the  auspices  of  the  China  Inland  Mis- 
sion in  the  autumn  of  1909 — one  of  the  speakers  stated 
that  ''altogether  4800 men  were  wanted  in  China  in  the 
near  future  for  mission  work  " ;  while  in  a  pamphlet  pub- 
lished by  the  same  mission^  the  ideal  is  held  out  of  one 
foreign  missionary  for  every  25,000  of  the  native  popu- 
lation. This  would  give  a  total  of  16,000  Protestant 
missionaries  for  the  whole  empire  in  addition  to  native 
clergy  and  lay  preachers.^ 

^  For  a  further  discussion  of  this  point  of  view,  see  Chapter  XIX. 

2  Present-Day  Conditions  in  China,  by  Marshall  Broomhall  (Morgan 
and  Scott,  1908). 

3  The  Roman  Catholic  converts  in  China  are  said  to  number  720,540 
at  the  present  time.  [See  The  Decay  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  p.  302, 
by  J.  McCabe.]  According  to  the  Twenty-second  Annual  Report  of  the 
Christian  Literature  Society  (Protestant):  "The  Roman  Catholic  and 
Protestant  Christians  together  number  at  present  only  i^i  millions, 
and  the  annual  net  increase  of  Christian  membership  is  less  than 
100,000,  while  the  natural  increase  of  the  Chinese  population  is  reckoned 


i6    Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

These  resolutions  and  speeches  contain  few  hints  that 
missionary  enterprise  must  now  be  regarded  not  merely 
as  a  means  of  illuminating  the  darkness  of  the  heathen, 
but  also  as  a  necessary  agency  for  the  protection  and 
preservation  of  the  distinctive  civilisation  of  the  West. 
Elsewhere,  however,  we  may  find  abimdant  evidence  of 
the  prevalence  of  this  view.  It  has  been  strongly  em- 
phasised, for  example,  by  the  promoters  of  the  United 
Universities  Scheme,  which  aims  at  establishing  a  Christ- 
ian University  in  Central  China.  In  a  later  chapter  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  offer  some  remarks  on  this  im- 
portant project,  which  need  not  therefore  engage  our 
attention  at  present. '  The  importance  of  foreign  mis- 
sions as  a  means  of  protecting  the  interests  of  Western 
civilisation  was  insisted  on  by  some  of  the  speakers  and 
writers  at  the  World  Missionary  Conference  held  at 

at  four  millions  annually.  The  task  before  us  is  therefore  stupendous. " 
It  is  indeed,  if  every  year  the  new  heathens  outnumber  the  new  Christians 
by  no  fewer  than  3,900,000!  Obviously  China  can  never  be  christian- 
ised at  the  present  rate  of  progress,  for  the  numerical  difference  between 
Christians  and  heathens,  so  far  from  becoming  narrower,  is  growing 
enormously  wider  every  year.  Of  course,  this  state  of  things  would 
soon  be  altered  if  conversions  to  Christianity  began  to  take  place  en 
masse;  but  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  immediate  prospect  of  that. 
From  Broomhall's  Chinese  Empire  (London:  1907)  it  appears  that  there 
are  no  less  than  seventy-one  separate  Protestant  societies  supporting 
missionaries  in  China.  The  total  number  of  "communicants"  is  stated 
in  this  work  to  be  154,142;  but  there  is  another  body  of  93,878  described 
as  "adherents."  The  population  of  China,  according  to  the  most  recent 
estimate  (quoted  by  Mr.  Broomhall),  is  426,000,000.  If  Mr.  McCabe's 
figures  are  correct,  the  entire  body  of  Christians  in  China  (including 
Catholics  and  Protestants  of  all  denominations)  would  appear  to  be 
only  968,560,  even  if  Protestant  "adherents"  are  added  to  the  "com- 
municants. "  Granting  that  there  are  about  one  miUion  Christians  in 
China,  it  appears  that  the  proportion  of  Christians  to  "heathen"  is 
less  than  one  in  four  hundred,  or  a  quarter  of  i  per  cent.  The  number 
of  Protestant  missionaries  in  China  in  1907  was  3719.  This  works 
out  at  about  sixty-one  native  Christians  to  each  missionary. 
^  See  Chapter  XIX. 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity    17 

Edinburgh  last  year.  The  Scotsman  newspaper,  after  re- 
marking that  the  Conference  promised  to  be  an  epoch- 
making  event  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  drew 
attention  to  the  grave  dangers  now  ahead  of  Western 
civiHsation  and  to  the  active  part  that  missionary 
Christianity  may  take  in  averting  such  dangers. 

The  World  Missionary  Conference  [said  The  Scotsman] 
is  the  result  of  that  great  revolution  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  non-Christian  nations  in  recent  years.  Until 
a  short  time  ago  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  East 
should  bow  down  before  the  West.  But  suddenly  the 
East  has  sprung  to  life.  The  spectacle  of  the  heathen  ac- 
tually beating  a  Christian  Power  has  confronted  the  world 
with  hitherto  unthought-of  possibilities.  The  sudden  rise 
of  Japan  to  the  position  of  a  first-class  Power;  the  slow 
awakening  of  the  millions  of  China  to  a  consciousness  of 
their  latent  power;  the  revival  of  Mohammedanism  in  the 
shape  of  a  reformed  Ttukey — these  have  forced  on  the 
Christian  Churches  the  question  as  to  whether  the  future 
of  the  world  is  to  be  in  Christian  or  in  heathen  hands. 
In  Africa  Mohammedanism,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  travellers,  is  spreading  like  a  prairie  fire.  ...  It  is 
the  sudden  emergence  of  problems  such  as  this  that 
constituted  the  necessity  for  the  World  Missionary  Con- 
ference. ...  It  needs  the  concerted  action  of  all  the 
Churches  to  meet  a  menace  such  as  that.^ 

As  I  have  pointed  out,  there  is  probably  no  Oriental 
who  has  sufficient  insight  into  the  Western  character 
to  justify  him  in  making  any  dogmatic  assertion  with 
regard  to  the  peculiar  problems  suggested  by  Christian 
missions.  But  perhaps  in  the  foregoing  considerations 
may  be  found  a  more  or  less  sufficient  explanation  of 
the  unwonted  activity  in  missionary  effort  which  the 
Christian  communities  of  the  West  are  showing  at  the 

»  The  Scotsman,  Feb.  23,  1910. 


i8    Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

present  time.  Whatever  the  full  explanation  may  be, 
the  undoubted  increase  in  missionary  activity  makes  it 
urgently  necessary  that  extreme  care  should  be  taken 
in  the  selection  of  missionary  candidates,  in  the  super- 
vision of  their  methods  in  the  "field, "  and  in  scrutinis- 
ing and  correcting  their  varying  conceptions  of  the 
essentials  of  Christian  doctrine.  It  is  because  I  am 
firmly  convinced  that  some  of  the  teachings  and  methods 
of  very  many  foreign  missionaries  are  seriously  defective 
in  themselves,  harmful  to  the  people  of  China,  and  dis- 
astrous to  the  causes  of  truth,  civiHsation,  and  in- 
ternational harmony,  that  I  have  obliged  myself  to 
undertake  the  difficult  and  cheerless  task  of  issuing  this 
Appeal  to  the  People  of  the  Christian  West. 

In  order  to  explain  my  meaning  fairly  and  adequately 
it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  express  my  thoughts  with 
a  freedom  and  directness  that  may,  I  fear,  outrage 
the  susceptibiHties  of  many  who  still  cHng  fondly  to  the 
religion  of  their  fathers,  and  may  perhaps  wound  the 
feelings  of  some  who,  while  they  have  renounced 
the  dogmas  of  Christianity,  continue  to  hold  in  deepest 
reverence  the  ideal  beHeved  by  them  to  have  been 
reaHsed  in  the  person  of  Jesus.  I  can  only  assure  them 
that,  whatever  may  be  the  general  impression  gained 
by  them  from  the  following  pages,  they  will  not  be 
justified  in  supposing  that  there  has  been  any  intention 
on  my  part  to  scoff  or  cavil  at  things  that  better  men 
than  myself  hold  sacred.  Also,  I  should  like  my  readers 
to  understand  that  if  some  of  my  statements  appear  to 
be  crudely  dogmatic  they  are  only  so  expressed  for  the 
sake  of  conciseness  and  the  avoidance  of  ambiguity,  and 
their  apparent  dogmatism  does  not  faithfully  represent 
my  mental  attitude. '  I  should  Hke  the  words  ' '  It  seems 
to  me, "  or  "  In  the  light  of  the  evidence  so  far  accessible 

^  Omnis  sermo  noster  duhitationis  sale  sit  conditus. 


Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity     19 

to  me  I  am  inclined  to  think, "  to  be  understood  in 
front  of  every  statement  of  personal  belief  or  opin- 
ion that  finds  place  in  this  book.  I  wish,  moreover, 
to  emphasise  the  fact  that  the  complaints  I  have  to 
make  concerning  missionaries  and  their  methods  and 
teachings  by  no  means  extend  to  missionaries  of  all 
types  and  classes.  Among  your  Christian  teachers  in 
China  there  are  men  and  women  who  are  living  noble 
and  inspiring  lives,  and  are  brightening  thousands  of 
Chinese  homes  by  innumerable  acts  of  warm-hearted 
benevolence,  neighbourly  kindness,  and  devoted  self- 
sacrifice.  There  are  cultivated  Christians  who  may  be 
said  to  exemplify  in  their  own  aims  and  conduct  the 
highest  ideals  of  Western  civilisation — teachers  from 
whom  we  Chinese  can  learn  nothing  but  good.  There 
are  men  and  women  who,  by  devoting  their  main  energies 
to  medical  or  educational  work,  are  benefiting  the  minds 
and  bodies  of  innumerable  Chinese  in  a  manner  that 
deserves  and  receives  our  homage  and  admiration.  If  in 
the  course  of  the  following  pages  hardly  anything  is  said 
of  the  splendid  work  done  by  such  missionaries  as  these,  it 
is  not  because  I  am  unconscious  of  the  incalculable  benefit 
they  are  conferring  upon  many  Chinese,  but  for  the  very 
reason  that  I  regard  them  as  so  far  above  all  criticism 
that  praise  would  be  superfluous  and — as  coming  from 
a  convinced  non-Christian — might  be  regarded  as  pre- 
sumptuous .  If  this  highest  type  of  Christian  missionary 
were  the  only  type  of  which  China  has  experience  there 
would  be  no  justification  for  the  issue  of  this  Appeal; 
for  though  I  repudiate  the  assumption  that  a  belief  in 
Christian  theology  or  in  Christian  dogmas  is  a  necessary 
preliminary  either  to  virtue  and  happiness  in  this 
world  or  to  salvation  in  the  next  I  gladly  admit  that 
such  a  belief  has  been,  to  multitudes  of  people  in  the 
Western  lands,  the  mainspring  of  their  actions,  hopes, 


20   Christendom  and  Missionary  Activity 

and  ideals,  and  has  been  the  chief  source  of  the  inspira- 
tion that  has  impelled  some  of  the  best  and  noblest 
of  Western  men  and  women  to  devote  their  lives  to  the 
advancement  of  Christian  civilisation  in  the  heathen 
East. 

[Note. — Perhaps  I  may  take  this  opportunity  of  stating  that  I 
shall  be  glad  to  receive,  through  the  publishers  of  this  Appeal,  any 
criticisms,  suggestions,  or  expressions  of  opinion — whether  friendly 
or  adverse — which  readers  may  feel  disposed  to  offer  on  the  subjects 
dealt  with  in  the  course  of  these  chapters.  My  correspondents  will 
not  omit,  I  trust,  to  state  whether  they  object  to  the  future  pubHcation 
of  such  letters  as  they  may  be  good  enough  to  address  to  me,  and  whether, 
in  the  event  of  such  publication,  I  may  regard  myself  as  at  liberty  to 
make  use  of  their  names.] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PROSPECTS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

A  YOUNG  Japanese  fellow-student  of  mine  was  once 
discussing  with  me  the  prospects  of  Christianity 
in  the  Far  East.  "We  Japanese,"  said  my  friend, 
''will  not  become  Christians,  but  Japan  may  adopt 
Christianity."  When  I  asked  him  to  explain  this 
paradox,  he  told  me  of  the  opinion  held  by  many 
influential  people  in  Japan  that  their  country  will  never 
be  regarded  by  the  great  Western  Powers  as  a  thor- 
oughly respectable  and  civilised  state  so  long  as  it 
remains  outside  the  pale  of  Christianity.  "It  is  not," 
he  explained,  "that  the  Western  peoples  really  care 
very  much  whether  we  become  sincere  believers  in 
their  creed  or  not:  how  could  they,  seeing  that  they 
are  ceasing  to  believe  in  it  themselves?  But  they  have 
not  yet  grown  out  of  their  inherited  superstition  that 
true  civilisation  and  the  Christian  reHgion  are  inextri- 
cably bound  up  with  one  another,  and  that  the  heathen 
must  necessarily — so  long  as  they  remain  heathen — 
be  more  or  less  barbarous  in  manners  and  morally 
corrupt.  Our  Japanese  sensitiveness  and  national 
pride  make  us  rebel  against  being  classed  with  people 
who  clothe  themselves  in  girdles  of  feathers,  and  wave 
tomahawks,  and  eat  their  prisoners  of  war,  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  with  the  view  of  raising  the  status 

21 


22     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

of  the  country  in  the  eyes  of  the  Western  world,  our 
Government  may  some  day  decide  to  declare  Christi- 
anity the  State  religion.  But  there  will  be  no  at- 
tempt made  to  tamper  with  the  existing  religious 
practices  of  the  people.  Christianity  may  be  nomin- 
ally adopted  as  the  State  creed,  but  this  will  be  purely 
for  political  or  economic  reasons — perhaps  owing  to 
the  state  of  the  money  market  and  the  difficulty  of 
raising  foreign  loans — ^and  the  statesmen  that  bring 
about  this  outward  change  in  our  religious  attitude 
would  not  dream  of  compelling  us  to  become  converts 
to  the  foreign  faith,  even  if  they  had  the  power  to  do 
so."  ''Surely,'*  I  said,  ''you  are  attributing  an  un- 
heard-of degree  of  cynicism  to  your  statesmen."  "I 
do  not  for  a  moment  deny  it,"  was  the  reply;  "but  all 
successful  statesmanship,  in  the  present  state  of  the 
world,  rests  to  some  extent  on  a  basis  of  cynicism." 
"You  are  also  assuming,"  I  remarked,  "that  foreign 
observers  will  be  so  obtuse  as  not  to  see  through  this 
manoeuvre."  "Some  might  see  through  it,"  said  my 
Japanese  friend,  "but  they  would  be  powerless  to 
hamper  its  success.  Almost  the  only  Western  resid- 
ents in  Japan  are  merchants,  diplomatists,  and  mission- 
aries. The  merchants  care  too  little  about  religion 
themselves  to  bother  their  heads  about  the  matter; 
the  diplomatists  might  send  confidential  despatches 
to  their  Governments  expressing  doubts  as  to  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  Christian  movement,  but  their  despatches 
would  be  merely  pigeon-holed  and  forgotten;  and  as 
for  the  missionaries,  I  do  not  anticipate  that  any  de- 
ntmciations  of  Japanese  cynicism  would  come  from 
them.  They  would  be  so  delighted  at  the  prospect  of 
an  even  nominally  Christian  Japan  that  they  would 
meet  the  Government  half-way,  and  any  doubts  that 
they  might  have  about  official  motives  would  be  stifled 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East     2^ 

under  the  belief  that  a  simulated  acceptance  of  the 
Christian  faith  would  inevitably  give  place  sooner  or 
later  to  a  wholly  genuine  belief.  Meanwhile  the  mere 
announcement  that  the  Emperor  of  Japan  had  declared 
Christianity  to  be  the  State  religion  would  fill  the  for- 
eign missionary  societies  with  holy  rapture,  paeans  of 
thanksgiving  would  go  up  from  half  the  churches  in 
Europe  and  America,  and  the  missionary  journals 
would  jubilantly  spread  abroad  the  glad  tidings  of 
how  God  had  at  last  vindicated  himself  in  the  strongest 
fortress  of  heathendom."  ''And  what  date  do  you 
assign,"  I  asked,  ''for  your  Government  to  take  this 
momentous  step?"  "I  do  not  say  that  the  step  will 
be  taken  at  all,"  was  the  reply;  "I  merely  suggest  the 
possibility.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  conceivable  that 
China  might  take  it  even  sooner  than  Japan,  though 
for  rather  different  reasons.  If  our  two  countries 
were  about  to  go  to  war  with  one  another  again,  your 
country  might  officially  adopt  Christianity  with  the 
view  of  enlisting  Western  sympathy  against  mine. 
Think  how  the  Christian  pulpits  of  Europe  and  America 
would  ring  with  denunciations  of  the  Western  Govern- 
ments if  they  stood  idly  by  while  a  weak  but  Christian 
China  was  grappling  with  a  strong  but  heathen  Japan!" 
If  I  hesitate  to  endorse  this  Japanese  view  of  future 
religious  possibilities  in  the  Far  East,  it  is  not  because 
I  regard  it  as  by  any  means  fantastic,  but  because 
there  seems  to  be  no  probability  that  religious  con- 
siderations, however  commanding  a  position  they  may 
occupy  in  the  relations  between  individuals,  will  in 
these  latter  days  affect  very  seriously  the  political 
or  economic  relations  between  Eastern  and  Western 
states.  Great  Britain  did  not  scorn  to  ally  herself 
with  a  heathen  power,  and  made  no  stipulation  that 
her  partner's  plenipotentiaries  should  sign  the  Thirty- 


24     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

nine  Articles  before  they  signed  the  treaty  of  alliance. 
The  alleged  hatred  of  Australians  and  Americans  for 
Orientals  does  not  appear  to  be  rooted  in  religious 
disagreements.  The  Christian  West  did  not  intervene 
to  save  Christian  Russia  from  receiving  punishment 
at  the  hands  of  pagan  Japan.  That  the  proud  West 
dislikes  Orientals  may  be  true  enough ;  but  this  is  due 
to  racial  and  sociological  and,  perhaps,  especially  to 
industrial  causes,  far  more  than  to  religious  differences. 
If  a  European  Power  makes  demands  on  China  that 
she  would  not  dare  to  make  upon  a  great  Western 
state,  she  does  so  not  because  of  any  superiority  that 
she  may  possess  through  her  status  as  a  Christian 
Power,  but  because  she  is  conscious  of  her  own  political 
strength  and  China's  political  weakness.  The  arro- 
gance of  the  West  in  its  dealings  with  China  will  pass 
away  when  China  becomes  a  great  Power,  even  though 
she  remains  heathen;  it  would  never  pass  away  if 
China  turned  Christian  but  remained  politically 
impotent. 

But  the  outlook  of  individuals  is  not  always  the  same 
as  that  of  states;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  many 
Western  people,  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  tradi- 
tional belief  that  truth  and  Christianity  are  practically 
synonymous  terms,  do  sincerely  regard  themselves  as 
entitled,  on  account  of  their  Christianity,  to  assume  a 
position  of  superiority  in  respect  of  the  blundering 
heathen  who  walks  in  darkness.  They  have  been  so 
long  accustomed  to  regard  good  morals  as  dependent 
on  an  acceptance  of  certain  theological  dogmas  and 
formulas  that  they  are  inclined  to  doubt  whether,  apart 
from  Christianity,  there  can  be  any  soimd  morality 
at  all.  When  they  are  faced  by  the  awkward  fact 
that  the  most  outspoken  disbehevers  in  the  Christian 
faith  are  among  the  best,  most  tmselfish,  and  high- 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    25 

principled  men  of  their  acquaintance,  they  explain 
this  strange  fact  by  the  theory  that  these  well-behaved 
infidels  are  influenced  by  a  Christian  education  or  by 
Christian  surroundings.  A  good  example  of  this 
occurs  in  Professor  Sanday's  disappointing  little 
pamphlet,  A  New  Marcion,  which  professes  to  be,  but 
is  not,  a  criticism  of  a  recent  work  by  Mr.  F.  C.  Cony- 
beare  in  which  the  historical  evidences  of  Christianity 
are  ably  and  somewhat  tmsparingly  dissected.  **0f 
course,'*  says  the  professor,  "Mr.  Conybeare  is  better 
than  his  creed.  This  is  what  constantly  happens:  a 
Christian  upbringing  tells,  and  the  effects  of  it  siu-vive 
after  it  has  been  given  up  as  theoretically  imtenable."^ 
Similarly,  Dr.  Warschauer  holds  that  if  agnostics  are 
good  men,  it  is  because  willingly  or  unwillingly  they 
have  taken  in  Christian  ideas  through  every  pore.^ 
The  Bishop  of  Carpentaria  (Dr.  Gilbert  White)  delivers 
himself  of  the  dictum  that,  "the  level  even  of  conven- 
tional Christianity  is  far  higher  than  that  of  non- 
Christian  life.  "3  The  Christian  belief  that  only 
Christians  can  be  good  men,  or  that  goodness  can 
be  derived  only  from  Christianity,  is  sometimes  nar- 
rowed still  further  into  a  belief  that  true  righteousness 
can  be  justly  ascribed  only  to  the  members  of  certain 
sects  or  subdivisions  of  Christianity.  Protestants  have 
been  heard  to  denounce  Catholics  as  emissaries  of 
Satan,'*  and  Catholics  retort  with  the  cheerful  remark 
that  nothing  but  the  plea  of  "invincible  ignorance" 
can  save  the  unhappy  Protestant  heretics  from  eternal 
damnation.  The  pope,  in  his  famous  Encyclical 
Letter,  Pascendi  Gregis,  feels  obliged  to  admit  that  the 
Modernists,  whom  he  is  denouncing,  "possess,  as  a 
rule,  a  reputation  for  irreproachable  morality";  but 

^  Op.  cit.,  p.  16.  ^  Anti-Nunguam,  p.  27. 

3  The  East  and  the  West,  Jan.,  1909,  p.  17.  "  See  pp.  100,  156. 


26     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

he  takes  care  to  explain  that  this  fact  is  "well  calculated 
to  deceive  souls." 

The  religious  believer  who  holds  that  Christianity 
is  directly  or  indirectly  responsible  for  all  the  moral 
goodness  that  is  to  be  found  among  men,  not  imnatur- 
ally  recoils  with  horror  and  indignation  from  the  infidel 
who  expresses  grave  doubts,  not  only  as  to  the  fitness 
of  Christianity  to  be  the  imiversal  religion,  but  also  as 
to  its  historical  truth  and  its  ethical  soundness.  The 
happiest  memories  of  his  childhood,  to  many  a  devout 
Christian,  are  associated  with  the  simple  prayers  and 
hymns  that  he  learned  at  the  knees  of  a  loved  and 
loving  mother.  As  soon  would  he  doubt  his  mother's 
affection  or  virtue  as  call  in  question  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  story  as  he  heard  it  from  her  lips.  If  his 
thoughts  turn  to  the  days  of  boyhood  and  youth  he 
will  form  a  mental  picture  of  the  ivy-clad  parish  church 
imder  the  shadow  of  which  he  was  brought  up,  or  his 
school  chapel,  or  the  beautiful  cathedral  in  which  the 
grandeur  of  the  Christian  ritual  made  its  first  strong 
appeal  to  his  emotions  and  awakened  his  mind  to  the 
*' beauty  of  hoHness.'*  Artists,  poets,  architects,  mu- 
sicians have  lavished  upon  the  external  aspects  of  his 
religion  all  the  resources  of  human  genius,  and  have 
glorified  the  forms  and  symbols  of  his  faith  just  as  the 
saints  and  mystics  have  glorified  its  spiritual  aspects. 
He  not  only  believes  but  he  knows  that  truth,  clothed 
with  beauty  and  mystery  as  with  a  garment,  is  revealed 
to  him,  in  the  word  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

If  this  be  the  way  in  which  Christianity  makes  its 
appeal  to  one  who  has  been  brought  up  in  a  Christian 
land  and  amid  Christian  traditions,  it  is  not  strange 
that  he  should  be  amazed  and  indignant,  and  perhaps 
scornful,  when  he  finds  that  the  heathen  seem  deaf 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East     27 

to  an  appeal  which  to  himself  is  irresistible.  He  does 
not  realise,  without  great  difficulty,  that  the  average 
Oriental,  whose  emotional,  religious,  and  intellectual 
interests  are  naturally  those  of  his  own  race,  cannot — 
even  though  he  become  a  Christian  convert — regard 
the  religion  of  the  Cross  from  the  same  point  of  view 
as  his  Western  teachers  or  feel  its  attraction  in  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  felt  by  them. 

One  thing  that  Western  Christians  often  seem  tmable 
to  tmderstand  is  that  to  find  favour  with  the  educated 
and  intelligent  members  of  a  heathen  race  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  Christianity  should  be  presented 
to  them  in  a  form  that  will  bear  the  closest  critical 
scrutiny  by  the  unprepossessed  intellect.  I  do  not, 
of  course,  mean  that  faith  and  reason  may  not  have 
their  separate  provinces.  For  all  I  know  to  the  con- 
trary, faith  may  be  able  to  grasp  truths  which  are 
unattainable  by  the  intellect  alone.  Yet  it  is  not  only 
unwise,  it  is  also  immoral,  to  lead  the  Chinese  to  suppose 
that  the  unverifiable  dogmas  or  doctrines  of  the  Christ- 
ian faith  are  established  on  a  basis  of  ascertained  and 
indisputable  truth.  I  have  heard  a  missionary  teach- 
ing a  large  Chinese  class  the  usual  Christian  stories 
concerning  the  birth  and  childhood  of  Jesus.  He  spoke 
with  fervour,  and  assured  his  ignorant  listeners  that 
what  he  was  telling  them  was  irrefragably  true.  Yet 
even  so  conservative  a  critic  as  Harnack  admits  that 
"the  tradition  as  to  the  incidents  attending  the  birth 
and  early  life  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  shattered." 

Some  devout  but  candid  Christians  will  admit  that 
there  are  many  elements  of  theological  doctrine,  and 
a  considerable  section  of  scriptural  literature,  which  in 
their  heart  of  hearts  they  would  be  glad  to  see  lopped 
off  the  Christian  tree.  If  they  are  opposed  to  any 
such  mutilation  at  the  present  time,  it  is  either  because 


28     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

they  fear  that  the  loping  of  a  branch  may  endanger 
the  life  of  the  tree,  or  because  they  remember  that  the 
branch  has  been  hung  with  the  votive  offerings  of 
perhaps  fifty  generations  of  Christian  saints  and  wor- 
shippers, and  has  therefore  acquired  a  sanctity  of  its 
own  which  it  would  be  sinful  to  violate.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  the  Athanasian  Creed  had  not  been  discovered 
till  the  year  of  grace  1900.  Would  it  have  foimd  a 
place,  during  the  ten  years  that  have  since  elapsed, 
in  the  Christian  prayer-books?  Would  it  have  been 
accepted  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  Church  ritual? 
There  can  be  only  one  answer  to  such  questions. 
Even  if  its  discovery  (say  in  an  Abyssinian  tomb)  had 
been  accompanied  by  positive  proofs  that  it  was  the 
genuine  work  of  Athanasius  himself,  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  no  one — ^not  even  those  who  are  now  bitterly 
protesting  against  the  proposal  to  exclude  it  from  the 
Anglican  ritual — would  hail  it  as  a  true  and  satisfying 
exposition  of  Christian  doctrine  or  demand  that  its 
public  recital  be  made  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical  law.' 
Again,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  if  such  a  thing 
as  a  revision  of  the  Scriptures  were  conceivably  possi- 
ble, and  if  such  revision  could  be  carried  out  quietly 
and  without  attracting  attention  or  arousing  discussion, 
both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  would  be  sub- 
jected to  some  drastic  alterations  and  some  extensive 
omissions.  From  this  process  the  Gospels  would 
not  be  excepted.  Judging  from  the  trend  of  recent 
New  Testament  criticism  it  is  not  imlikely  that  the 
miracles  ascribed  to  Jesus  (except  those  of  healing) 
as  well  as  the  nativity  legends  and  the  story  of  the 
bodily  resurrection  and  ascension  would  vanish  from 
the  sacred  records. 

Speculation  on  these  subjects  is,  of  course,  entirely 

'See  pp.  160-1. 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    29 

useless,  as  the  day  has  long  gone  by  (though  we  now 
know  that  there  once  was  such  a  day)  when  the  Script- 
ures could  be  submitted  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a 
paste-and-scissors  editor.  But  most  students  will 
admit  that  there  is  a  great  and  growing  divergence 
between  the  Christianity  of  the  creeds  and  sacred 
books,  and  the  Christianity  that  is  with  pain  and  diffi- 
culty extricating  itself  from  the  hands  of  historical 
and  ethical  criticism.  With  reference  to  this  grave 
matter,  there  are  two  points  to  which  I  am  anxious 
to  draw  attention.  One  is,  that  the  process  of  "recon- 
ciling" scriptural  error  and  theological  inaccuracy  with 
the  facts  established  by  critical  research  and  scientific 
discovery  is  leading  to  insincerity,  sophistry,  and  am- 
biguity of  speech  on  the  part  of  religious  teachers, 
and  to  a  pitiful  condition  of  mental  confusion  on  the 
part  of  honest  Christian  laymen,  which  must  not  only 
be  disastrous  in  the  long  run  to  the  cause  of  true  religion 
and  sound  morals,  but  will  seriously  discredit  the  higher 
or  spiritual  side  of  Western  civilisation  in  the  eyes  of 
keen  Oriental  observers.  The  other  point  is,  that  the 
Christianity  which  is  being  taught  to  the  Chinese  by 
the  great  bulk  of  missionaries  to-day  is  not  the  Christi- 
anity that  is  accepted  by  cultivated  and  intelligent 
Christians  of  the  present  time  in  Europe  and  America, 
but  represents  a  religious  system  which  is  morally 
defective,  intellectually  absiurd,  and  historically  un- 
true, and  which  has  been  discarded  by  capable  theo- 
logians as  well  as  by  nearly  all  educated  laymen  in 
Western  lands.  ^ 

'"Thoughtful  men  of  to-day  .  .  .  are  not  asking  themselves  whether 
Jesus  was  'God,'  or  'omniscient,'  or  'sinless,'  or  'the  ideal  man.' 
These  terms  as  appHed  to  a  human  individual  have  no  meaning  to  them 
...  if  the  sayings  attributed  to  Jesus  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  are 
critically  sifted  and  translated  back  into  the  Aramaic  dialect  Jesus 
spoke,  it  becomes  evident  that  he  never  claimed  to  be,  or  showed  any 


30    Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

The  first  point — the  insincerity  and  ambiguity  of 
modern  Christian  Apologetics — is  becoming  so  widely 
recognised  that  even  an  Oriental  may  perhaps  be  par- 
doned for  his  presumption  in  referring  to  it.  Mr. 
Sturt  speaks  of  the  ''  mental  deterioration  "  that  must 
result  from  the  ''habitual  insincerity''  and  ''divorce 
of  language  from  meaning"  that  characterise  much 
Christian  exhortation  of  the  present  day.  ^ 

The  fact  of  clerical  insincerity  [he  says]  is  notorious;  it 
is  notorious  that  all  our  enlightened  priests  have  ceased 
to  accept  in  any  natural  sense  the  propositions  to  which 
they  subscribed  at  ordination.  .  .  .  Although  they  recite 
the  formula  daily,  they  do  not  believe  that  Jesus  was  con- 
ceived by  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  was  bom  of  a  virgin,  or  de- 
scended into  hell,  or  rose  again  the  third  day,  or  ascended 
into  heaven,  or  will  come  thence  to  judge  the  quick  and 
the  dead.^ 

The  Church  of  England,  in  spite  of  all  its  doctrinal 
compromises  and  its  basis  of  English  common-sense,  is 
one  of  the  worst  offenders.  Even  the  authorities  of  a 
rival  organisation — the  Church  of  Rome — have  felt  it 
their  painful  duty  to  upbraid  the  English  clergy  for  "the 
vague  and  deceptive  character  of  their  language." 
Referring  to  the  pronouncements  of  certain  Anglican 
divines  on  the  subject  of  the  Real  Presence  and  the  Sacri- 
fice of  the  Mass,  the  Catholic  clergy  ask  why  it  is  "  that, 
capable  men  as  they  undoubtedly  were,  they  should 

desire  to  become,  the  Messiah,  but  that  he  included  himself  among 
the  sons  of  men  whom  he  looked  upon  as  the  sons  of  God,  applying  to 
himself  all  the  laws  he  laid  down  for  their  life,  only  regarding  himself 
as  a  prophet,  a  sower  of  the  good  seed  in  the  world's  great  field." — 
Nathaniel  Schmidt  in  The  InternationalJournal  of  Ethics,  April,  1910, 
pp.  381-2.  (It  need  hardly  be  said  that  scholars  are  still  at  variance 
over  the  Messiah  question.  See  The  Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  by  Henry 
Sturt,  pp.  177-201.) 

I  The  Idea  of  a  Free  Church.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  263-4. 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    31 

have  been,  one  and  all,  so  unable  to  expound  their 
meaning  in  language  of  clear  and  unmistakable  char- 
acter?"^ Can  it  be  that  the  ambiguities  and  want 
of  clarity  are  due  to  the  desire  to  provide  every  theo- 
logical position  with  gaps  and  loop-holes,  through  which 
escape  may  be  made  in  the  event  of  the  positions 
becoming  untenable?  Another  writer  speaks  of  ''that 
timorous  and  pitiable  system  of  concessions  and  half- 
truths,  than  which  nothing  has  tended  more  to 
discredit  religion  among  serious  thinkers."^  No  fair- 
minded  man  asks  or  expects  Christian  apologists  to 
give  us  the  whole  essence  of  Christianity  in  a  few  lucid 
and  comprehensive  sentences.  ''Ces  choses  ne  se 
disent  pas  succinctement, "  as  Hegel  said.  But  they 
should  at  least  be  able  to  express  themselves  in  such 
a  manner  that  no  doubt  can  arise  in  any  intelligent 
mind  as  to  what  they  really  mean.  Christians  may 
(or  may  not)  have  built  their  mansion  upon  a  rock,  but 
at  any  rate,  as  Paul  Sabatier  has  said,  they  are  con- 
stantly engaged  in  changing  its  furniture;  and  the 
changes  are  rapid  enough  to  cause  not  only  surprise, 
but  bewilderment.  The  Christian  religion,  says  Mr. 
St.  George  Stock,  which  "was  once  so  boldly  dogmatic, 
has  become  a  kind  of  Proteus  which,  on  your  grasping 
it,  evades  you  in  a  stream  of  pious  phraseology.  "^ 
Father  George  Tyrrell  explained  the  present  dearth 
of  candidates  for  ordination  in  nearly  every  Christian 
body  by  the  fact  that  ''thoughtful  and  conscientious 
men"  are  hesitating  "in  these  days  of  theological  chaos 
to  expose  themselves  even  to  the  suspicion  of  laying 

^A  Vindication  of  the  Bull  "Apostolicce  Curce,"  by  the  Cardinal 
Archbishop  and  Bishops  of  the  Province  of  Westminster,  p.  Ii6  (Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co.,  1898). 

'  The  Hihhert  Journal,  April,  1907,  pp.  496-7. 

3  Ibid.,  Jan.,  1909,  p.  453. 


32     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

fetters  on  their  inward  freedom,  not  to  speak  of  the 
real  danger  to  their  perfect  veracity  and  candour." 
Men  and  women,  he  said,  are  "still  keenly  and  wist- 
fully interested  in  religious  questions;  but  when  they 
turn  to  the  professed  defenders  of  religion  they  find 
them  tied  by  solemn  obligations  to  certain  methods  and 
conclusions,  and  incapable  of  deaHng  freely  with  minds 
whose  interest  is  in  truth,  and  not  in  this  or  that  truth.**  ^ 
There  are  a  few  clear-minded  Anglican  clergy  who 
have  expressed  themselves  with  no  less  candour.  "It 
is  not  just  indifference  or  self-indulgence,"  says  the 
Rev.  S.  A.  Barnett,  "which  alienates  the  people  from 
church  or  chapel  or  mission;  it  is  the  insincerity  or 
inconsistency  which  they  themselves  have  learned  to 
detect.*'^  These  are  strong  words  from  a  canon  of 
Westminster  Abbey. 

Most  unhesitatingly  do  I  believe  that  the  shufflings 
and  ambiguities  of  modem  Christian  Apologetics  will 
have  a  terribly  chilling  effect  on  the  welcome  which  an 
awakened  China  will  accord  to  the  religious  constitu- 
ents or  accompaniments  of  Western  civilisation.  If, 
so  far  as  the  relations  between  East  and  West  are  con- 
cerned, this  matter  of  clerical  insincerity  is  not  at  the 
present  moment  a  very  urgent  one,  this  is  only  because 
the  Christianity  which  is  being  promulgated  by  mission- 
aries in  China  to-day  is  a  Christianity  that  is  sublimely 
ignorant,  or  at  least  contemptuous,  of  the  results 
actually  attained  or  reasonably  anticipated  by  advanced 
exponents  of  the  higher  criticism,  and  consequently  it 
is  a  Christianity  that  makes  little  or  no  use  of  modem 
apologetic  arguments.  Very  few  Chinese  converts 
have  any  knowledge  of  the  grim  warfare  that  is  at 
present  being  waged  in  the  West  on  theological  battle- 

*  Contemporary  Review,  May,  1909,  pp.  580,  582. 
»  The  Hibbert  Journal,  July,  1907,  p.  881. 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    33 

fields,  and  only  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  such  con- 
verts have  the  slightest  conception  of  the  nature  of 
the  weapons  with  which  the  attack  and  defence  are 
conducted  and  the  manner  in  which  the  champions 
of  orthodoxy  are  in  the  habit  of  defending  their  threat- 
ened positions. 

But  this  brings  me  to  the  second  point  to  which 
I  desire  to  draw  attention.  A  Christianity  that  is 
decaying  or  has  become  obsolete  in  the  West  among 
all  thinking  persons  (clergy  as  well  as  laity),  a  Christi- 
anity that  is  to  a  great  extent  palpably  untrue,  that 
is  full  of  idle  and  mischievous  superstitions,  that  is 
ethically  impracticable,  is  still  regarded  as  suitable 
religious  pabulum  for  an  awakening  China  that  is  no 
nation  of  low-browed  savages,  but  one  which  expects 
at  no  distant  date  to  take  an  honourable  place  in  the 
front  rank  of  the  progressive  peoples  of  the  world. 
This  is  a  state  of  things  which  most  emphatically 
should  not  be  allowed  to  continue. 

The  position  in  China  at  present  is  a  peculiar  one. 
So  far  as  the  material  developments  of  Western  civili- 
sation are  concerned  we  are  being  provided  with  the 
newest  and  best  results  attained  by  modern  science; 
but  in  respect  of  the  religious  developments  of  the  West 
we  are  being  spoon-fed  with  a  theology  from  which 
all  nourishment — ^if  it  ever  contained  any — ^has  been 
withdrawn.  It  is  "very  much  to  be  desired,"  as  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Rashdall  has  said,  "that  things  which  edu- 
cated men  are  ceasing  to  believe  at  home  should  no 
longer  be  taught  to  the  heathen  abroad."^  If  I  go 
to  a  European  lecturer  on  physiology,  will  he  teach 

'  "The  Motive  of  Modern  Missionary  Work, "  in  The  Amencan  Jour- 
nal of  Theology,  July,  1907,  p.  380.  Would  that  some  hundreds  or 
thousands  of  Christian  missionaries  in  China  could  be  replaced  by 
as  many  Dr.  Rashdalls!^ 


34     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

me  Wolff's  theory  of  embryology,  which  the  learned 
world  accepted  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  has  long 
given  up,  or  will  he  give  me  the  latest  and  best  theories 
at  his  disposal?    Surely  he  will  not,  because  I  am  a 
Chinese,    load    me    with    old-fashioned   and    obsolete 
science  on  the  ground  that  what  was  good  enough  for 
his  great-grandfather  ought  to  be  good  enough  for  me? 
I     If  I  enter  a  Western  imiversity,   shall  I  be  taught 
I     alchemy  instead   of  chemistry,   astrology   instead   of 
I      astronomy?    If  I  pay  a  visit  to  a  modern  observatory, 
{      shall  I  be  told  that  the  sun.  goes  round  the  earth,  be- 
(       cause,   forsooth,   the  astronomer's  ancestors  believed 
I       it?     If  you  have  outgrown  your  old  belief  in  the  story 
I       of  the  fall  of  man,  is  it  really  necessary  that,  before 
I        we  Chinese  can  hope  to  reach  the  religious  heights  you 
I        have  since  attained,  we  in  our  turn  must  go  through 
j        a  belief  in  the  same  fable?    If  you  have  surrendered 
I         your  faith  in  the  Joshua  sim-miracle,  or  the  whale- 
and- Jonah  legend,   or  the  virgin-birth  of  Christ,   or 
the  blasting  of  the  fig-tree,  or  the  story  of  the  Gadarene 
swine,  can  it  be  really  essential  that  we  Chinese  should 
enter  upon  our  Christian  novitiate  by  accepting  all 
these  things  as  true?^    I  grant  that  in  most  cases 
missionaries  do  themselves  believe  in  the  crude  theo- 
logy which  they  teach  in  China,  and  that  they  are, 
in  fact,  giving  us  the  best  that  they  know  and  the 
Christianity  that  they  believe  to  be  true,   but  this 
brings  meagre  consolation  to  those  of  us  who  under- 
stand that  the  Chinese  are  being  fed  with    inferior 
philosophy,  unpractical  ethics,   and   witless    supersti- 
tions, and  that  folklore  and  old-world  myths  (pleasing 
and  pictiiresque  enough  if  treated  as  such)  are  being 

^  It  is  rather  curious  that  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era  we 
Chinese  had  a  philosopher  (Wang  Ch'ung)  who  warned  us  against  put- 
ting credulous  trust  in  stories  of  virgin-births  and  similar  prodigies. 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    35 

palmed  off  on  our  people  as  divine  revelation  and 
historical  truth. 

Remember,  we  Chinese  have  no  sentimental  clinging 
to  the  Christianity  of  the  Bible  and  the  creeds.  In 
your  coimtry  you  must,  perhaps,  ''go  slow,"  as  the 
saying  is,  because  you  must  be  merciful  to  tender  con- 
sciences and  must  abstain  from  tearing  up  people's 
religious  beliefs  by  the  roots.  You  need  have  no  such 
fear  in  China:  the  roots  are  not  in  us.  The  fact  that 
the  Chinese  know  nothing  of  your  religion  does  not 
justify  Christian  missionaries  in  teaching  them  a 
Christianity  that  cultiu*ed  men  among  yourselves 
have  discarded;  on  the  contrary,  it  should  make  them 
all  the  more  scrupulously  careful  to  teach  nothing 
whatever  but  what  will  stand  all  the  criticism  that 
the  scientific,  historical,  philosophical,  ethical,  and 
biblical  learning  of  the  present  and  past  days  has 
brought  to  bear  on  theological  and  christological 
problems. 

The  question  of  the  doctrines  that  should  be  taught 
to  Christian  converts  is,  of  course,  recognised  as  a 
serious  and  important  one  by  missionaries  of  the  highly- 
cultured  class  with  which  this  Appeal  has  only  an 
indirect  concern.  It  is  recognised  as  such,  for  instance, 
by  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Burton,  a  member  of  the  Australian 
Methodist  Missionary  Society  in  Fiji,  who  says  that 
the  doctrinal  question  is  "daily  becoming  more  ur- 
gent." He  sees  clearly  that  if  you  teach  the  Chinese 
an  obsolete  Christianity,  the  day  must  come  when 
you  will  be  obliged — imless  you  are  prepared  to  face 
their  total  and  final  rejection  of  your  religion — to 
teach  them  to  unlearn  a  great  deal  that  has  already 
been  laboriously  taught. 

The  position  to  be  assigned  to  the  Old  Testament  [he 


36     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

says]  is  a  case  in  point.  Should  we  lead  a  non-Christian 
people  through  the  wilderness  of  Jewish  tradition  and 
Semitic  ideas?  Should  we  ask  a  people  weaker  in  the  faith 
than  ourselves  to  make  those  adjustments  in  religious 
thought  which  our  early  training  has  made  necessary  to  us? 
The  most  dangerous  trial  of  faith  is  that  of  wwlearning. 
Shall  we  put  this  strain  upon  them?^ 

What  the  present  religious  condition  demands,  says 
another  recent  writer, 

is  no  longer  ** concessions"  to  science,  but  an  honest 
renovation  of  the  whole  religious  system  in  the  light  of 
scientific  knowledge.  It  is  no  use  trying  to  twist  facts  to 
suit  theories  derived  from  a  past  which  was  destitute  of 
the  knowledge  we  now  possess ;  what  we  have  to  do  is  to 
adjust  our  theories  to  suit  the  facts.  Half-a-century  ago 
evolution  was  unproven,  and  biblical  criticism  was  in  a 
tentative  and  conjectural  stage;  in  politics  the  Temporal 
Power  still  held  Rome  for  absolutism,  and  democracy  was 
suffering  from  a  partial  check.  To-day,  evolution,  the 
great  results  of  biblical  criticism,  and  democracy  are  all 
acknowledged  facts,  and  in  the  Hght  of  them  the  need  for 
religious  reconstruction  is  patent  and  indisputable.^ 

I  "Christian  Missions  as  Affected  by  Liberal  Theology,"  in  The 
Hibhert  Journal,  Jan.,  1909,  p.  412.  The  same  writer  makes  the  follow- 
ing significant  admission,  which,  if  it  came  from  one  who  was  not  a 
missionary,  would  be  denounced  forthwith  as  a  gross  misstatement. 
"In  spite  of  the  dramatic  and  enthusiastic  utterances  of  the  class 
usually  associated,  rightly  or  wrongly,  with  'Exeter  Hall,'  Foreign 
Missions  have  not  been  the  success  they  might  reasonably  have  been 
expected  to  be,  when  the  enormous  expenditure  of  Hfe  and  wealth  is 
considered.  This  fact  is  admitted — privately,  of  course — by  those  who 
are  in  a  position  to  judge.  It  is  not  the  criticism  of  the  unsympathetic, 
but  the  sigh  of  the  disappointed.  The  successes  are,  as  a  rule,  trum- 
peted abroad,  the  failures  are  discreetly  hidden  away.  We  hear  much 
on  missionary  platforms  of  the  faithfulness  and  devotion  of  converts; 
but  there  is  another  side — and  it  is  to  be  feared  the  larger  side — the 
instability,  the  unfaithfulness,  and  the  greed  of  those  who  have  been 
won." — Ihid.,  pp.  408-9. 

^The  Hihhert  Journal,  April,  1907,  pp.  497,  510-11.     Cf.  an  inter- 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    37 

Now,  is  it  fair  to  press  on  the  people  of  China  a 
Christianity  that  is  in  the  distracted  condition  in 
which  we  find  it  to-day?  Will  you  not  at  least  spare 
us  the  pain  of  having  to  learn  much  that  you  yourselves 
admit  we  may  have  to  unlearn  fifty,  twenty,  or  even 
five  years  hence?  May  we  not  appeal  to  you  to  make 
up  yoiu:  own  minds  about  what  is  true  and  what  is 
not  true  in  Christianity  before  you  ask  us  to  exchange 
for  it  the  old  faiths  and  ideals  of  oiir  own  race?  If  you 
wish  to  invite  us  into  your  citadel  in  order  that  we  may 
find  shelter  there  from  warring  creeds  and  clashing 
philosophies,  are  we  not  entitled  to  ask  you,  before  we 
enter,  whether  you  have  made  your  citadel  strong 
and  impregnable? 

Perhaps  you  think  still — you  certainly  once  thought 
— that  our  heathen  religions  and  ethics  are  so  hope- 
lessly vile  and  corrupt  that  Christianity,  in  whatever 
shape  or  form,  must  be  brought  in  to  replace  them. 
But  we  Chinese  are  not  Central  African  or  Polynesian 
savages.  You  may,  if  you  will,  send  out  trousers 
and  Bibles  to  such  races  as  these,  because  they  have 
neither  clothes  nor  sacred  books  of  their  own;  but 
we  Chinese  are  not  in  this  unhappy  state  of  physical 
and  moral  nakedness.     Not  only  have  we  an  ethical 

esting  article  in  the  same  journal,  October,  1908,  entitled  "Evangelical 
Bargaining,"  by  John  Page  Hopps.  The  article  deals  with  certain 
recent  attempts  at  compromise  between  the  orthodox  and  advanced 
theologies.  The  author  comments  on  the  "naive  and  illuminating 
confession"  of  the  evangeHcal  Churches  that  "the  premises  are  being 
rebuilt  but  the  business  must  be  carried  on";  hence  the  invitation 
to  "capable  middle-men"  to  act  as  mediators  "between  the  learned 
and  the  public,"  and  keep  people  quiet  and  comfortable  in  an  inter- 
mediate stage  of  religious  faith  which  will  be  neither  too  advanced  for 
old-fashioned  believers  nor  too  backward  for  those  who  know  something 
of  the  results  of  the  higher  criticism.  "In  fact,"  says  Mr.  Hopps, 
"it  is  the  part  of  'the  capable  middle-man'  to  persuade  the  customers 
that  there  is  a  great  change  and  yet  that  it  all  comes  to  the  same  thing." 


38     Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East 

and  religious  literature  which  we  beHeve  to  be  com- 
parable with  any  other,  but  many  of  us  have  access, 
also,  to  all  the  literary  treasiures  of  the  West.  A 
missionary  who  faces  a  large  promiscuous  audience  in 
a  Chinese  city  can  no  longer  be  sure  that  he  is  ad- 
dressing an  ignorant  and  gaping  mob,  or  that  his  only 
educated  listeners  are  those  who  are  learned  in  the 
Confucian  classics.  It  is  not  impossible  that  among 
his  audience  may  be  men  who  are  acquainted  with 
Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Haeckel,  and  who  read  with  keen 
interest  the  publications  of  the  rationalist  press  and 
the  works  of  Western  philosophers  whom  the  average 
missionary  would  describe  as  infidel,  agnostic,  or 
atheistic.  What  will  the  unlettered  Christian  mis- 
sionary do  with  a  Chinese  who  has  read  Hume,  or 
Spencer,  or  McTaggart,  or  Bradley,  or  Nietzsche  and 
Der  Antichrist  J  and  is  prepared  to  discuss  them  with 
him?  Bishop  Colenso,  as  we  all  know,  was  so  puzzled 
by  the  searching  questions  put  to  him  by  his  African 
disciples  and  inquirers  that  he  himself  became  a  sort 
of  convert  to  his  own  converts,  and  adopted  biblical 
views  which,  though  regarded  as  harmless  and  in  some 
respects  old-fashioned  to-day,  were  at  that  time  frowned 
upon  as  dangerously  heretical.  But  what  is  to  become 
of  a  new  Colenso  in  China  who  is  called  upon  to  reply 
to  the  criticisms  of  a  Loisy,  or  a  Conybeare,  or  a  Stiurt? 
It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasised  that  the  Chinese 
do  not  want  Europe's  cast-off  theology,  and  if  you 
insist  upon  thrusting  it  on  them  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
there  will  some  day  be  a  terrible  reaction,  resulting 
in  the  definite  expulsion  from  China  of  all  Western 
religion.  By  no  m.eans  do  I  desire  to  see  all  religious 
impulses  stifled  in  China.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who 
believe  that  the  day  for  religion  of  any  and  every  kind 
is  for  ever  passed  away.    George  Tyrrell  was  perhaps 


Prospects  of  Christianity  in  Far  East    39 

right  when  he  declared  that  *' spiritual  religion,  far 
from  being  outgrown  like  a  toy,  becomes  more  and  more 
of  an  exigency  with  the  deepening  of  man's  moral  and 
spiritual  life."  But  if  the  acceptance  of  Christianity 
necessitates  the  sacrifice  of  sincerity  and  truth,  I,  for 
one,  shall  rejoice  to  see  China  adopt  a  religion  that  is 
not  Christian  and  is  not  inconsistent  with  perfect 
honesty  of  thought  and  speech.  I  cannot  see  that 
man's  moral  or  spiritual  life  is  likely  to  derive  permanent 
benefit  from  a  faith  in  dogmas  which  are  either  repug- 
nant to  the  reason,  and,  therefore,  morally  mischievous, 
or  which  can  be  reconciled  with  truth  only  by  a  dis- 
tortion of  language  and  by  theological  jugglery.  West- 
em  thinkers  are  beginning  to  urge  the  formulation 
of  a  scientific  religion  that  shall  be  consistent  with 
itself  and  in  harmony  with  modern  thought.^  Whether 
there  be  any  form  of  Christianity  that  by  further  dis- 
tortion or  manipulation  can  be  made  to  fulfil  such  con- 
ditions is  a  question  that  I  am  in  no  way  qualified  to 
answer;  but  I  may  be  allowed  to  express  the  hope  and 
belief  that  no  form  of  Western  religion  irreconcilable 
with  those  conditions  will  find  a  permanent  home  on 
Chinese  soil.^ 

*  Cf.  Prof.  Beth's  Die  Moderne  und  die  Prinzipien  der  Theologie 
(Trowitzsch,  1907).  Mr.  Start's  proposed  Free  Church  would  not, 
of  course,  be  a  Christian  Church.  If  he  can  arrange  to  send  some 
missionaries  to  China  to  promulgate  the  religious  ideas  adumbrated 
by  him,  I  am  inclined  to  think  they  will  meet  with  no  small  measure 
of  success. 

^  For  further  observations  on  this  subject,  see  below,  pp.  304-307' 


CHAPTER  III 

MISSIONARIES  AND  THEIR  METHODS 

BEFORE  proceeding  to  give  examples  of  what  I 
believe  to  be  the  mistaken  methods  of  mission- 
aries, it  is  necessary  to  reiterate  a  warning  that  I  have 
no  wish  to  bring  an  indictment  against  the  whole  body 
of  missionaries,  but  only  against  a  section  of  them 
which  is  numerically  very  powerful.  I  am  glad  to 
admit  that  there  are  also  some  educated  and  cultivated 
missionaries  who  invariably  behave  with  the  same  tact 
and  courtesy  in  a  heathen  land  that  they  would  exer- 
cise among  the  people  of  their  own  country;  who  take 
the  utmost  care  never  to  abuse  their  position  as  guests 
of  the  Chinese  nation;  who  never  offend  native  relig- 
ious prejudices  and  never  dream  of  interfering  with 
estabHshed  social  usages;  who,  in  short,  are  never 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  that  im written  and  undefinable 
code  of  good  manners,  the  observance  of  which  always 
enables  gentlemen,  whatever  land  they  belong  to 
and  whatever  language  they  speak,  to  meet  on  terms 
of  sympathy  and  equality.  Against  such  mission- 
aries as  these — whose  presence  in  China  will  always  be 
welcomed  even  if  we  reject  the  dogmas  of  their  religion 
— I  have  no  wish  to  bring  a  complaint.  If  one  does 
not  often  hear  missionaries  of  this  excellent  but  ex- 
ceptional type  speaking  with  easy  familiarity  of  the 
Deity,  ^  or  if  their  utterances  are  not  constantly  inter- 

'  Observations  of  this  kind  are  painfully  frequent  in  missionary 

40 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods        41 

larded  with  references  to  "blessing,"  "spiritual  up- 
lift," "agony,"  and  other  stock  phrases  dear  to  the 
heart  of  their  less-cultivated  brethren  in  religion,  ^  and 
if  their  church  services  are  marked  by  a  quiet  reverence 
and  decorum  which  to  a  revivalist  would  betoken  a 
chilling  absence  of  godly  fervour,  if  not  the  actual 
presence  of  the  Devil,  ^  they  at  least  give  the  Chinese 
endless  opportunities  of  forming  an  acquaintance  with 
the  graces  and  harmonies  that  characterise  the  highest 
type  of  Christian  lives  and  homes,  and  supply  the 
officials  and  educated  classes  of  China  with  sufficient 
proof  that  Western  civilisation  at  its  best  is  not  neces- 
sarily aggressive  and  truculent  in  the  material  concerns 


periodicals.  "At  noon  the  Lord  definitely  gave  Mrs.  Green  this 
promise:  'His  going  forth  is  sure  as  the  morning';  and  later  we  found 
that  He  had  given  the  same  to  Mr.  Goforth  also"  {China's  Millions, 
March,  1909,  pp.  38-9).  The  reference  was  to  the  expected  spiritual 
"going  forth"  at  one  of  Mr.  Goforth 's  revival  meetings;  but  one  may 
perhaps  be  allowed  to  express  surprise  that  feelings  of  reverence  did 
not  impel  the  lady  to  suppress  the  Lord's  not  very  subtle  pun  on  the 
name  of  her  reverend  colleague. 

^  "We  have  been  greatly  cheered  by  hearing  from  Mr.  Meadows  of 
marked  blessing  at  the  recent  conference  at  Shashingfu.  Pastor  Ren,  of 
Hangchow,  appears  to  have  received  a  spiritual  uplift  at  the  time,  and 
his  preaching  was  in  much  power.  .  .  .  Sins  of  almost  every  name  were 
confessed,  in  some  cases  with  deep  agony  and  loud  weeping"  (China's 
Millions,  March,  1909,  p.  37.  ItaHcs  not  in  original).  The  words 
"agony"  and  "agonise"  occur  seven  times  in  twelve  lines  in  a  printed 
address  reported  in  China's  Millions  of  August,  1909  (p.  116).  We  are 
there  informed  that  the  process  of  "agony  "  is  one  to  which  God  himself 
is  at  times  subjected. 

2  A  missionary  prayer-meeting  is  described  as  follows:  "The  hush  of 
God  came  down  upon  the  people,  but  the  Devil  was  raging.  During 
the  first  few  days  many  prayed  who  were  not  led  of  the  Spirit,  just 
the  ordinary  commonplace  prayers,''and  we  felt  strongly  that  this  was 
one  of  the  tactics  of  the  Evil  One"  (China's  Millions,  March.  1909,  p. 
38).  Thus  we  see  not  only  that  the  Devil  can  quote  Scripture  for  his 
purpose,  a  thing  we  all  knew  long  ago,  but  that  he  can  also  win  souls 
for  hell  by  teaching  them  an  erroneous  method  of  prayer! 


42         Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

of  life,  and  not  necessarily  bigoted  and  hysterical  in 
matters  spiritual. 

There  is  a  distinct  line  of  cleavage  between  the  two 
principal  missionary  types.  On  the  one  side  we  have 
what  we  may  call  the  decorous  type;  on  the  other  side 
a  type  that  sometimes  may  be  not  unfittingly  described 
as  the  corybantic.  The  cleavage  extends  not  only  to 
methods  of  proselytism  but  even  to  private  devotions, 
and  to  household  management  and  mural  decoration: 
for  indeed  a  peep  at  the  inside  walls  of  a  missionary's 
private  house  will  almost  infallibly  enable  an  experi- 
enced visitor  to  form  an  accurate  idea  of  the  type 
to  which  his  host  belongs. 

An  EngHsh  official  who  has  travelled  much  in  the 
interior  of  China  informs  me  that  at  one  time  he 
always  made  a  point  of  calling  upon  the  missionaries 
in  the  various  towns  and  villages  he  passed  through, 
not  for  the  sake  of  religious  edification,  but  merely 
from  motives  of  ordinary  courtesy.  Latterly,  however, 
he  has  been  obliged  to  desist  altogether  (except  in 
special  cases)  from  intruding  upon  missionary  es- 
tablishments, owing  to  the  disagreeable  frequency 
with  which  he  has  found  himself  faced  by  the  choice 
either  of  being  guilty  of  apparent  discourtesy  to  his 
well-meaning  hosts  or  of  taking  a  hypocritical  part  in 
pious  conversations  and  religious  exercises.  On  one 
occasion  his  badly-concealed  reluctance  to  accept 
without  question  the  supposed  proofs  of  some  miracles 
alleged  to  have  been  wrought  by  the  Deity  in  a  certain 
locality  in  China  induced  his  host  to  offer  up  special 
prayers,  in  which  the  whole  company  audibly  joined, 
that  my  friend  "might  be  reconciled  to  his  Maker. *'^ 

» The  well-meant  practice  of  praying  for  or  at  people  is  sometimes 
found  to  be  an  embarrassing  one  even  in  heathen  China.  There  was 
a  woman,  we  are  told,  who  was  being  prepared  for  baptism,  but  who 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods        43 

On  another  occasion  the  same  Englishman  climbed 
to  the  top  of  one  of  the  grandest  mountains  in  China, 
and  in  a  Taoist  temple  near  the  summit  he  found 
a  group  of  Protestant  missionaries,  who  in  this  cool 
and  salubrious  retreat  were  spending  the  hot  months  of 
a  mid-China  summer.  My  friend  put  up  for  the  night 
in  the  same  temple,  and  on  the  following  morning  one 
of  the  missionaries  accompanied  him  on  a  short  ramble. 
The  missionary  spoke  highly  of  the  mountain  as  a 
healthy  stimmer  resort,  but  seemed  strangely  cold  to 
the  magnificence  of  the  scenery.  Having  steered  my 
friend  into  a  grotto,  from  which  escape  was  impossible, 
he  suddenly  addressed  him  with  the  remark,  "Are 
you  a  lover  of  the  Lord  Jesus?'*  My  friend's  first 
impulse  was  to  answer  that  at  any  rate  he  loved  in- 
tensely everything  that  was  beautiful,  but  knowing 
by  instinct  that  his  interlocutor  would  not  understand 
such  a  remark,  he  merely  gave  a  vague  reply  to  the 
effect  that  he  never  discussed  his  reHgious  feehngs 
except  with  his  personal  friends.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  missionary's  question  was  appropriate  neither 
to  the  time  nor  to  the  occasion,  and  he  would  have 
thought  more  highly  of  the  man,  even  as  a  professional 
preacher  of  the  Christian  gospel,  if  he  had  wholly 
yielded  himself,  just  for  that  hour,  to  a  frank  apprecia- 
tion of  the  loveliness  that  lay  around  him. 

But  the  relations  between  Western  missionaries  and 
their   own   countrymen   need   not    concern  us   here. 

had  not  yet  succeeded  in  passing  the  very  mild  theological  examination 
which  was  a  necessary  preliminary  to  Church  membership.  She  put 
her  failure  down  to  the  fact  that  her  heart  was  vexed.  "I  asked  her, " 
writes  a  missionary,  "what  it  was  that  had  vexed  her.  She  replied  that 
in  their  village  prayer-meeting  the  Christians  all  prayed  at  her"  {China's 
Millions,  Feb. ,  1 909,  p.  29) .  It  would  be  interesting  to  observe  the  effect 
of  the  introduction  of  this  amiable  custom  into  a  few  of  the  fashionable 
churches  of  London  and  New  York. 


44        Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

More  important  is  it  to  consider  the  methods  adopted 
by  missionaries  with  a  view  to  imparting  to  the  Chinese 
their  conceptions  of  the  Christian  religion  and  Western 
civiHsation.  There  is,  as  every  one  knows,  a  rapidly 
growing  eagerness  among  the  Chinese  to  acquire  a 
knowledge  of  Western  science — not,  indeed,  because 
they  have  any  love  for  the  West  or  for  all  Western 
ideals,  but  because  they  now  reaHse  that  a  mastery  of 
scientific  knowledge  and  methods  is,  in  these  days  of 
stupendous  armaments,  incessant  national  rivalries, 
and  economic  competition,  a  necessary  preliminary 
to  the  attainment  of  material  prosperity  and  political 
strength.  Properly-equipped  schools  and  colleges 
are  still  very  few  in  number,  and  for  the  great  bulk 
of  the  people  the  only  possible  means  of  acquiring 
even  the  merest  smattering  of  Western  knowledge 
is  by  attendance  at  mission  schools.  Now,  as  many 
missionary  teachers  and  lecturers  are  mainly  interested 
in  the  evangelical  side  of  their  labours  and  only  indi- 
rectly in  secular  education,^  it  is  not  surprising  that 

'  I  In  proof  of  this  I  quote  from  the  authoritative  Appeal  for  Evangel- 
istic Workers  issued  by  the  China  Centenary  Missionary  Conference, 
and  published  in  China's  Millions,  September,  1909,  p.  135:  "No  one 
can  question  the  importance  of  the  work  done  by  those  engaged  in  the 
medical,  educational,  literary,  and  philanthropic  branches  of  our  great 
missionary  enterprise;  but  we  would  impress  upon  the  home  Churches 
the  fact  that  the  time  has  come  when  direct  evangelism  must  be  given 
the  first  place.  Less  than  one  half  of  the  whole  missionary  staff  in 
China  is  now  engaged  in  this  direct  evangelistic  work,  and  even  this 
proportion,  in  itself  far  too  small,  is  due  mainly  to  the  importance 
which  the  China  Inland  Mission  places  upon  evangelistic  as  compared 
with  institutional  work."  The  following  is  from  an  article  in  The 
Chinese  Recorder  of  March,  1910,  pp.  202  seg_.: 

"Missionaries  have  told  me  that  they  did  not  believe  in  itinerating 
work;  there  were  very  few  results  from  it;  and  it  was  their  opinion 
that  the  conversion  of  China's  millions  to  Christ  would  be  brought 
about  by  educational  work.  We  all  appreciate  the  valuable  work 
done  by  our  brethren  in  the  Christian  schools,  but  I  feel  perfectly 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods        45 

they  regard  their  scientific  instruments  as  a  kind  of 
bait  to  attract  those  who  would  otherwise  never  enter 
a  missionary  building  and  never  hear  a  word  of  the 
gospel;  and  they  take  care  that  the  man  who  is  taught 
something  about  a  steam  engine  or  an  electric  battery 
is  not  allowed  to  go  away  until  he  has  also  imbibed 
some  knowledge  of  the  ''saving  grace"  of  Christ.  An 
excellent  example  of  how  these  things  are  arranged 
is  afforded  by  an  account,  now  before  me,  of  the 
methods  pursued  by  a  missionary  in  the  far  western 
province  of  Ssiich'uan. 

Our  first  step  was  this:  We  had  a  small  unoccupied 
ward,  two  sides  of  which  we  fitted  up  with  tables  and  spread 
out  upon  them  a  few  pieces  of  scientific  apparatus,  many 
connected  with  chemistry  and  electricity.  We  made  no 
effort  to  make  this  known,  but  since  that  place  was  opened 
we  have  never  had  a  day  but  what  we  had  educated  people 
come  in.  In  increasing  numbers  they  came  day  by  day, 
and  week  by  week  It  was  a  very  blessed  thing,  after  we 
had  satisfied  their  curiosity,  to  ask  them  to  sit  down  and 
then  to  change  the  topic  and  in  a  quiet  way  preach  the 
gospel  to  these  people,  who,  but  for  the  science  room,  would 
certainly  never  have  come  within  hearing  of  it.  It  very 
soon  seemed  to  us  that  the  Lord  was  prospering  this  work, 
and  that  He  would  have  us  continue  it.^ 

The  rest  of  the  paper  is  of  the  highest  interest  as  showing 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  students  threw  them- 

sure  that  they  themselves  would  agree  with  me  in  this,  that  they  are 
touching  a  very  small  and  select  class  of  the  Chinese  only.  This 
problem  is  not  being,  and  cannot  be,  solved  by  the  Christian  edu- 
cational work. 

"...  The  time  has  come  in  China  when  all  the  missions  should 
unite  in  a  great  effort  for  the  thorough  evangelisation  of  the  masses 
in  China,  and  in  no  branch  of  missionary  enterprise  is  there  a  grander 
opportunity  for  union  than  in  this." 

^  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  91. 


46         Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

selves  into  the  pursuit  of  scientific  knowledge;  but 
what  I  wish  to  emphasise  here  is  the  deft  manner  in 
which  religious  teaching  was  interwoven  with  technical 
instruction. 

We  were  gaining  a  glorious  opportunity  [says  our 
chronicler]  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  these  people  to 
whom  we  had  never  spoken  it  before.  They  came  to  our 
house  and  lived  with  us.  When  they  were  too  many  for 
us  to  accommodate,  we  hired  a  temple  close  by  capable  of 
accommodating  forty  or  fifty  students.  Every  day  we 
assembled  for  morning  prayer  at  half-past  seven.  They 
heard  the  Bible  read  and  expounded.  They  saw  us  praying 
to  God,  the  unseen  Jehovah.  A  sight,  this,  with  which  they 
were  utterly  unfamiliar.  Day  by  day,  not  merely  once  or 
twice,  but  during  the  whole  course  of  the  six  weeks,  would 
they  come  into  contact  with  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

Then,  with  regard  to  Sundays,  it  was  a  grand  thing 
to  tell  them  on  Saturday  afternoon:  "To-morrow  there 
will  be  no  lecttue.  It  is  oiu-  worship  day.  Come  to  the 
church."  And  men  who  had  never  been  into  a  church  or 
a  chapel  before  would  all  come  and  sit  quietly  and  atten- 
tively throughout  the  service.  Then  on  Sunday  after- 
noons I  tried  to  have  a  special  effort  suited  to  their  par- 
ticular requirements.  But  perhaps  the  best  influence 
exercised  was  in  the  evenings  when,  the  work  of  the  day 
being  over,  I  had  an  opportunity  of  going  into  their  rooms, 
after  they  had  had  tea,  and  talking  with  them.  They  would 
all  be  diligently  at  work  writing  out  notes  of  what  they  had 
heard  dining  the  day,  making  diagrams  of  the  apparatus 
which  they  had  seen,  and  discussing  with  one  and  another 
the  whole  matter.  I  would  go  and  sit  down  amongst 
them  and  enter  into  these  problems  which  are  so  interesting 
and  then  would  gradually  lead  them  on  again  to  the  one 
great  theme,  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  ^ 

Now  my  object  in  quoting  these  passages  is  assuredly 

»  China's  Millions^  June,  1909,  p.  92. 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods         47 

not  to  find  fault  either  with  this  writer's  methods  or 
with  the  manner  in  which  he  describes  them.  On 
the  contrary,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  missionary  who 
devised  this  scheme  (Dr.  William  Wilson)  proved  hin- 
self  to  be  a  man  deserving  of  all  gratitude  and  honour. 
Even  those  of  us  who  do  not  share  his  faith  in  the 
religious  doctrines  which  to  him  doubtless  constitute 
the  very  essence  of  truth  and  beauty,  will  not  with- 
hold our  little  tribute  of  respect  and  admiration  for 
the  patience,  industry,  and  goodness  of  heart  which 
enabled  him  to  carry  out  his  self-imposed  task.  But 
a  careful  perusal  of  the  paper  from  which  the  above 
passages  are  taken  brings  out  a  feature  of  interest 
that  might  perhaps  escape  the  notice  of  those  who  are 
not  well  acquainted  with  the  Chinese  character.  Most 
Europeans  who  have  lived  long  in  China  are  wilHng 
to  grant  that  the  Chinese,  in  their  ordinary  social 
intercourse,  are  remarkable  for  their  patience,  tolerance, 
and  courtesy.  Missionaries  often  admit  this  as  freely 
as  it  is  admitted  by  other  foreigners.  One  such 
missionary,  alluding  to  the  readiness  with  which  the 
Chinese  male  adult  in  his  own  house  attends  to  the 
wishes  of  the  foreign  lady-missionaries  who  visit  his 
women-folk,  remarks  that  "the  Chinese  of  almost  any 
class  have  an  innate  good  breeding  which  compels 
them  to  listen  to  courteous  requests."'  Now  there 
is  nothing  in  Dr.  Wilson's  paper  to  give  the  uninformed 
reader  any  indication  of  how  it  was  that  these  crowds 
of  eager  students,  who  had  gathered  together  for  the 
express  purpose  of  hearing  scientific  lectures,  were 
wilHng  to  listen  patiently  to  the  reHgious  discourses 
that  followed  or  preceded  those  lectures.  I  venture 
to  suggest  that  some  credit  might  have  been  given  to 
these  Chinese  students  for  their  courteous  readiness 
^  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  75. 


48         Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

to  comply  with  what  they  knew  to  be  the  earnest 
wishes  of  their  foreign  teachers.  I  do  not  for  a  moment 
deny  that  on  the  part  of  many  of  the  students  there 
may  have  been  some  curiosity  to  hear  a  first-hand 
exposition  of  the  foreign  religion  of  which  they  had 
doubtless  received  many  garbled  accounts,  and  in 
certain  cases  a  genuine  interest  in  some  features  of  the 
new  doctrine  may  have  been  temporarily  or  perma- 
nently aroused.  But  the  mere  fact  that  the  scriptural 
lessons  failed  to  make  a  single  Christian  convert  (for 
a  conversion,  if  it  had  taken  place,  would  hardly  have 
been  left  unchronicled)  surely  justifies  us  in  suggesting 
that  what  made  these  yotmg  men  such  qmet  and  wilHng 
attendants  at  Christian  prayer-meetings  may  well 
have  been  the  promptings  of  their  own  gentlemanly 
feelings  of  courteous  respect  toward  those  from  whom 
they  were  receiving  valuable  lessons  in  modem  science. 
In  other  words,  they  (or  the  majority  of  them)  listened 
to  the  gospel  because  they  discovered  that  by  so  doing 
they  would  give  great  pleasure  to  their  foreign  teachers, 
and  they  adopted  this  means  of  showing  their  good- will 
and  gratitude.  Of  course,  no  missionary  can  be 
expected  to  look  on  the  matter  in  this  light:  from  his 
point  of  view,  a  chance  of  hearing  the  **good  news" 
must  be,  to  the  benighted  heathen,  a  priceless  and 
joyous  privilege;  and  the  idea  that  his  students  are 
making  martyrs  of  themselves,  so  to  speak,  merely 
through  their  chivalrous  respect  for  his  feelings,  will 
appear  to  him  foolish  and  extravagant.  Yet  I  think 
most  Europeans  who  are  not  themselves  missionaries 
but  have  a  good  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  character 
will  agree  that  this  explanation  of  the  matter  is  not 
altogether  imreasonable. 

Though  Dr.  Wilson's  elaborate  plan  for  the  propa- 
gation of  Christianity  among  the  student-class  may 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods        49 

in  some  cases  have  put  a  rather  severe  tax  on  the  pa- 
tience and  temper  of  those  of  the  students  whom  the 
Christian  rehgion  wholly  failed  to  attract,  there  is  no 
reason  to  regard  the  method  as  in  any  way  offensive 
to  Chinese  susceptibilities  or  as  likely  to  cause  any 
ill-feeling  toward  foreigners.  Unfortunately,  Christian 
missionaries  have  not  always  adopted  such  harm- 
less tactics  as  these.  It  would  be  impossible  to  esti- 
mate the  number  of  Chinese  who  have  become  nominal 
Christians  either  as  a  simple  means  of  earning  foreign 
money'  or  in  order  to  obtain  foreign  support  in  village 
quarrels  or  in  lawsuits.     I  do  not  wish  to  lay  undue 

^  The  following  significant  passage  occurs  in  The  Chinese  Recorder  of 
March,  1910  (p.  209): 

"A  very  serious  hindrance  to  this  work  [i.  e.,  the  evangelisation  of 
the  Chinese  masses]  is  the  unworthy  character  of  many  of  the  Chinese 
now  engaged  in  it.  It  is  most  natural  for  missionaries  to  desire  all 
the  Chinese  help  they  can  get,  but  this  has  too  often  led  to  the  em- 
ployment of  very  questionable  men.  ...  I  heard  a  dear  Chinese 
brother  say  not  long  ago  that  of  the  more  than  200,000  professing 
Christians  in  China  a  very  large  number  were  still  unregenerate, 
and  of  the  already  large  army  of  Chinese  workers  very  many  knew 
nothing  of  the  new  birth. 

"I  was  once  asked  by  a  missionary  brother  going  on  furlough  to 
take  the  oversight  of  his  four  colporteurs.  I  did  not  continue  these 
men  in  work  for  more  than  a  month,  for  instead  of  going  the  trip 
I  had  mapped  out  for  them  they  threw  their  books  into  the  river 
and  spent  their  days  in  a  neighbouring  city  in  idleness  and  gambling. 
Their  sales  had  averaged  so  very  little  that  it  paid  them  to  do  this. 

"A  missionary  travelling  on  a  passenger  boat  overheard  a  conver- 
sation between  two  Chinese  on  the  subject  of  the  price  of  a  Church 
membership  certificate,  and  it  was  all  too  conclusive  that  in  a  certain 
city  (the  name  of  which  was  given)  a  regular  trade  in  membership 
certificates  was  carried  on  by  the  Chinese  evangelist  in  charge. 

"One  day  a  man  called  to  see  me  in  Yangchow,  and  wished  my 
assistance  in  the  recovery  of  certain  articles  of  clothing,  which  he  said 
had  been  stolen  from  him  in  the  lodging-house  where  he  had  spent 
the  night.  The  man  was  a  colporteur  employed  by  a  missionary  in 
another  city,  and  I  afterwards  found  out  that  the  place  he  had  lost 
his  clothes  in  was  a  brothel. " 
4 


so        Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

emphasis  on  this  matter,  for  the  missionaries  themselves 
are  now  generally  ready  to  admit  that  intervention  in 
Chinese  lawsuits  is  a  practice  that  ought  to  be  strictly 
avoided,  and  some  societies  absolutely  forbid  their 
missionaries  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  the  proceed- 
ings in  Chinese  courts.  That  such  intervention  was 
once  very  frequent — especially  on  the  part  of  the 
Catholics — ^is  not,  I  believe,  denied  by  any  one  who 
is  in  a  position  to  know  the  facts.  The  plea  that  inter- 
vention takes  place  only  when  a  magistrate  has  given 
an  unfair  decision,  or  when  a  Christian  convert  has  been 
treated  with  manifest  injustice,  is  quite  unsatisfactory : 
for  in  the  first  place  missionaries  are  aliens  in  China 
and  therefore  have  no  authority  whatever  to  interfere 
in  matters  solely  affecting  Chinese  subjects ;  and  in  the 
second  place  they  have  no  moral  or  official  right  to 
constitute  themselves  judges  of  the  merits  of  cases  of 
which  they  have  usually  only  a  one-sided  knowledge 
and  in  which  they  are  practically  certain  to  have  a 
strong  bias  in  favour  of  their  own  converts.  As  a 
rule,  they  hear  only  the  Christian's  version  of  the 
disputed  issue;  indeed  they  generally  have  no  oppor- 
tunity of  hearing  any  other  version,  however  wilHng 
they  may  be  to  hear  all  that  can  be  said  on  both  sides. 
Even  if  the  statements  of  both  parties  are  placed 
before  them,  they  are  strongly  inclined  to  accept  the 
evidence  of  their  convert.  He,  as  a  Christian,  is 
supposed  to  be  incapable  of  bearing  false  witness, 
whereas  his  opponent,  being  a  heathen,  is  the  slave 
and  instrument  of  the  Father  of  Lies. 

In  South  China,  where  clan-fights  are  frequent,  it 
was  till  recently  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  whole  village 
to  present  itself  for  baptism  in  order  that  it  might 
have  foreign  support  in  carrying  on  its  feud  against  a 
neighbouring  village.     To  the  credit  of  the  Protestant 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods         51 

missionaries  be  it  said  that  they  have  not  encouraged 
this  system  of  baptism  en  masse;  and  it  is  perhaps 
needless  to  say  that  neither  CathoHcs  nor  Protest- 
ants have  deHberately  acted  as  the  protectors  of 
criminals.  ^  Some  years  ago  a  band  of  ruffians  in  the 
Kuangtung  province  presented  themselves  at  three 
separate  mission  stations  in  turn,  and  expressed  their 
deep  sense  of  sin  and  their  keen  desire  to  be  enrolled 
among  the  elect.  The  three  missionary  communities 
belonged  to  three  different  Christian  denominations, 
but  fortimately  their  rivalry  did  not  blind  them  to  the 
notoriously  bad  character  of  these  applicants  for 
baptism,  who,  much  to  their  own  surprise  and  disgust, 
foimd  themselves  gently  but  firmly  rejected.  Not 
to  be  baffled,  this  enterprising  band  of  rogues  invented 
a  new  religious  organisation  for  themselves,  which  they 
thought  would  give  them  all  the  political  advantages 
of  Christianity  without  involving  them  in  any  of  its 
corresponding  social  disabilities.  The  name  they 
selected  for  their  organisation  was  The  Confucian- Jesus 
Society y  and  under  the  shelter  of  this  imposing  desig- 
nation they  proceeded  to  grow  rich  if  not  virtuous. 

^"In  many  parts  of  China  there  have  been  and  still  are  a  con- 
siderable number  of  people  who  are  wishing  to  join  the  Church  in 
order  to  obtain  her  influence  in  their  disputes  and  law-cases"  {China's 
Millions,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  131).  Writing  of  conditions  at  Tungchow  in 
1905,  a  missionary  says:  "Four  of  the  five  Christians  there  had  gone 
back  to  opium-smoking,  and  the  other  was  hardly  worth  calling  a 
Christian,  as  he  was  meddling  in  lawsuits  and  making  money  behind 
our  back"  {China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  102).  So  much  for  Tung- 
chow! In  the  course  of  a  lecture  at  the  International  Institute  at 
Shanghai  (reported  in  The  North  China  Herald  of  Dec.  i,  1905,  p.  495), 
Dr.  Gilbert  Reid  referred  to  the  fact  that  in  Japan,  for  many  years 
past,  there  had  not  only  been  no  missionary  difficulties  "but  no  inter- 
ference in  Japanese  lawsuits.  Japanese  Christians  seemed  satisfied 
with  their  own  officials."  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well;  they  would  cer- 
tainly get  no  other.  The  naive  admission  of  the  practicability  of 
missionary  interference  in  lawsuits  is  very  significant. 


52        Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

The  association  prospered  exceedingly  for  a  short  space 
of  time  and  made  many  ''converts."  It  might  have 
flourished  to  this  day  but  for  the  unhappy  circumstance 
that  two  of  the  principal  office-bearers  were  convicted 
of  highway  robbery  and  executed. 

It  is  not  in  cases  like  this  that  missionaries  are  likely 
to  be  deceived:  but  from  their  own  admissions  it  is 
clear  that  they  have  often  unknowingly  admitted  to 
the  fold  cunning  hypocrites  whose  only  motive  in 
joining  the  Christian  fraternity  was  to  escape  the  penal- 
ties of  crime  or  to  secure  foreign  support  in  Htigation. 
European  writers  on  China,  who  very  rarely  have  a 
good  word  to  say  for  Chinese  officials,  have  perhaps 
never  reaHsed  the  enormous  difficulties  and  perplexities 
that  often  beset  even  an  honest  and  well-intentioned 
official  who  has  the  misfortune  to  be  stationed  in  a 
litigious  district  where  Christian  converts  happen  to 
be  numerous.  On  the  one  hand  the  official  has  re- 
ceived the  strictest  instructions  from  his  Government 
that  one  of  his  principal  duties  is  to  avoid  all  disputes 
with  missionaries  that  may  (so  long  as  China  is  po- 
litically weak)  lead  to  international  trouble,  and  on  the 
other  hand  he  is  naturally  averse  from  allowing  aliens 
who  have  no  official  status,  and  no  authority  recog- 
nised either  by  Chinese  or  by  international  law,  to 
dictate  to  him  the  manner  in  which  he  is  to  decide  cases 
that  directly  or  indirectly  concern  native  Christians. 
Yet  he  can  never  be  quite  certain  that  a  dispute  with 
a  missionary  will  not  lead  either  to  his  own  shameful 
humiUation  or  to  a  political  crisis  which  may  involve 
his  country  in  war  and  in  which  he  himself  is  sure  to 
be  made  the  chief  scapegoat.  The  story  of  how  these 
things  come  about  has  been  repeated  so  often  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  responsible  official  in  China  who 
does  not  know  it  by  heart;  and  many  are  the  ex- 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods         53 

officials  who  in  the  solitude  of  their  forced  retirement 
and  amid  the  cold  ashes  of  their  hopes  and  ambitions 
most  bitterly  repent  that  they  ever  for  a  moment 
allowed  the  pitiful  story  to  fade  from  their  memory. 
There  is  a  quarrel  between  convert  and  heathen  and 
finally  between  missionary  and  magistrate;  a  whisper 
of  foreign  intervention  and  aggression  reaches  the 
streets  and  market-places;  there  is  a  popular  tumult 
in  which  the  missionary  is  killed;  the  minister  of  the 
nation  to  which  he  belongs  demands  a  cash  indemnity, 
the  dismissal  of  the  magistrate  from  the  Government 
service,  the  re-building  of  the  ruined  mission  buildings, 
the  execution  of  a  few  of  the  rioters,  and  perhaps  a 
mining  or  territorial  concession  or  the  opening  of  a 
few  more  treaty  ports.  All  these  demands  are  re- 
luctantly yielded  by  China,  who  is  not  in  a  position 
to  struggle  against  the  bellicose  and  arrogant  Christian 
Powers  of  Europe — just  yet. 

Not  long  ago  I  called  on  a  Chinese  official  in  order 
to  congratulate  him  on  the  announcement  of  his 
transfer  to  a  rich  and  prosperous  district  near  one  of 
the  largest  cities  in  China.  The  post  which  he  was 
about  to  vacate  was  one  of  the  poorest  in  the  province. 
To  my  surprise  I  found  him  in  a  very  lugubrious  frame 
of  mind,  and  he  received  my  congratulations  dolefully. 
^*In  this  place, "  he  said,  ''the  people  are  well  behaved, 
the  country  is  quiet,  and  the  only  foreigner  who  came 
here  in  my  time  went  away  in  two  days.  In  the  dis- 
trict where  I  am  going  there  are  fourteen  missionaries. 
I  do  not  ask  for  your  congratulations;  I  should  be 
glad  of  your  sympathy."  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
the  possibilities  of  friction  between  missionaries  and 
officials  are  now  gradually  diminishing.  The  French 
Government  has  withdrawn  its  official  support  from 
the  Catholic  propaganda,  and  as  the  rest  of  the  Western 


54         Missionaries  and  Their  Methods 

Powers  seem  sincerely  anxious  at  present  to  avoid 
unnecessary  quarrels  with  China,  they  strongly  dis- 
courage their  missionaries  from  interference  with  legal 
proceedings  in  the  Chinese  courts.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  missionaries  now  in  China,  moreover,  are  en- 
gaged in  educational  and  medical  work,  and  these  men — 
especially  if  they  will  keep  their  evangelistic  zeal  under 
careful  control — are  now  received  with  marks  of  friend- 
ship in  a  very  large  number  of  towns  and  districts. 
Chinese  officials  are  well  aware,  however,  that  the 
missionary  danger  is  only  quiescent.^  The  hasty 
self-confidence,  perhaps  the  mistaken  patriotism,  of  an 
unwary  official,  or  the  proselytising  energy,  perhaps 
the  misdirected  benevolence,  of  a  rash  missionary, 
might  any  where  and  at  any  moment  cause  the  danger 
once  more  to  become  formidable;  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  so  long  as  China  is  politically  weak,  and  so  long 
as  extraterritorial  jurisdiction  is  maintained,  it  will 
always  continue  to  hang  like  a  thunder-cloud  in  the 
poHtical  firmament.  It  may  be  urged — it  has  often 
been  urged — that  no  missionary  would  dream  of  inter- 
fering with  the  Chinese  judicial  administration  if  the 
magistrate  would  always  dispense  even-handed  justice. 
That  is  very  likely  true.  But  in  practice  we  find  that 
it  is  the  missionary  who  arrogates  to  himself  the  right 
of  deciding  whether  in  any  particular  instance  a  just 
decision  has  or  has  not  been  given.  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  wish  to  deny  that  there  are  abuses  in  the 
existing  judicial  system  of  China  which  call  for  drastic 
reform,  but  it  is  necessary  to  reiterate  the  undeniable 
fact  that  few  missionaries — ^if  any— possess  the  training, 
the  experience,  the  knowledge  of  Chinese  law  and  cus- 
tom, the  insight  into  Chinese  character,  which  would 
justify  them  in  positively  asserting  that  a  Chinese 

I  With  reference  to  the  riots  at  Changsha,  April,  19 lo,  see  pp.  206  seq. 


Missionaries  and  Their  Methods        55 

magistrate  has  in  any  given  instance  decided  a  case 
unjustly.  Even  if  a  missionary  possessed  all  the 
qualifications  of  a  Solomon  he  would  still,  almost 
invariably,  be  in  the  disadvantageous  position  of 
knowing  the  arguments  only  of  one  side  of  the  case. 
Moreover,  if  he  feels  justified  in  accusing  the  magis- 
trate of  prejudice  against  Christians,  is  there  not  just 
the  ghost  of  a  fear  that  the  missionary  himself  may 
justifiably  be  regarded  as  slightly  prejudiced  against 
the  heathen  ? 


CHAPTER  IV" 

MISSIONARY   MOTIVES,  THE   CHINESE   CHARACTER,    AND 
THE  ATTITUDE   OF   YOUNG   CHINA 

MOST  good  Christians  who  support  foreign  mis- 
sions, and  the  majority  of  missionaries  them- 
selves, feel  that  they  need  look  for  no  further 
justification  of  their  action  than  the  alleged  commands 
of  their  Master.  "We  preach  to  the  heathen  because 
the  Lord  bade  us  do  so''  is  regarded  as  conclusive. 
Will  such  speakers  deny  that  the  alleged  command  is, 
to  say  the  least,  of  doubtful  genuineness?  *'Goye 
into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature.  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptised  shall  be 
saved;  but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned."' 
This  is  definite  enough,  but  are  missionaries  who 
triumphantly  quote  these  texts  always  careful  to  add 
(in  case  injury  is  done  to  the  cause  of  truth)  that  in 
the  opinion  of  the  best  modem  scholars  the  whole 
of  the  twelve  last  verses  of  Mark  (xvi.,  9-20)  are  a  late 
addition  to  the  original  and  replaced  a  former  ending 
that  was  lost  or  transferred  to  another  Gospel?^    The 

^  Mark  xvi.,  15-16. 

"Even  those  who  do  not  profess  to  be  theologians  may  justifiably 
feel  that  to  attribute  verse  i6  to  the  humane  Jesus  is  to  insult  him. 
Moreover,  the  last  twelve  verses  of  Mark  deal  with  post-resurrection 
occurrences;  and  any  words  put  into  Christ's  mouth  after  his  alleged 
revival  from  death  can  only  be  regarded  with  the  gravest  suspicion. 
I  think  I  may  say  with  confidence  that  Chinese  students  who,  without 
bias  for  or  against  Christianity,  have  carefully  studied  the  evidence 

56 


Missionary  Motives  57 

injunction  to  baptise  occurs  also  in  the  last  two  verses 
of  the  Gospel  ascribed  to  Matthew.  *'  Go  ye  therefore, 
and  teach  all  nations,  baptising  them  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost: 
Teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have 
commanded  you.  *' '  Of  these  words  a  great  theologian 
(the  Rev.  Dr.  Rashdall,  of  Oxford)  observes  that  un- 
forttmately  they  are 

among  the  most  disputed  of  all  the  sayings  attributed  to 
our  Lord  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Even  if  they  form  part 
of  the  true  text  of  the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew,  their 
historical  character  is  open  to  grave  suspicion.  .  .  .  This 
particular  saying  is  open  to  objections  on  two  grounds. 
In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  general  doubt  whether  our 
Lord  contemplated  definitely  a  mission  to  all  the  world. 

for  the  bodily  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Jesus,  do  not  merely 
regard  it  as  hopelessly  and  even  absurdly  inadequate,  but  can  scarcely 
bring  themselves  to  believe  that  educated  men  in  the  West  are  really 
speaking  honestly  and  without  mental  reservations  when  they  pro- 
nounce the  evidence  to  be  satisfactory  and  conclusive.  There  are 
ample  signs  that  the  bodily-resurrection  fable,  though  long  left  on  a 
pedestal  by  itself,  is  now  gradually  and  cautiously  being  treated  with 
the  refining  and  spiritualising  process  through  which  so  many  other 
crude  Christian  beliefs  have  passed  on  their  way  to  "reconciliation" 
with  truth.  (I  am  not  referring  merely  to  the  peculiar  methods  of 
the  Modernists,  who  seem  to  hold  that  an  alleged  historical  event, 
though  proved  to  be  false  in  fact,  may  yet  remain  true  for  faith.)  Few 
competent  theologians  of  to-day  will  now  venture  to  repeat  the  confident 
\  assertion  of  Bishop  Courtenay  (who  published  his  views  slightly  over 
fifty  years  ago)  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  "is  more  authentically 
attested  than  any  other  fact  in  history. "  Among  recent  works  dealing 
with  the  evidence  for  the  resurrection  I  may  cite  those  with  which  a 
considerable  number  of  Chinese  students  are  familiar:  Alfred  Loisy's 
UEvangile  et  VEgUse,  Autour  d'un  Petit  Livre,  eto.;  Paul  Le  Breton's 
La  Resurrection  du  Christ;  C.  T.  Gorham's  The  First  Easter  Dawn; 
F.  C.  Conybeare's  Myth,  Magic,  and  Morals ;  Henry  Sturt's  The  Idea  of 
a  Free  Church  (esp.  pp.  225-7) ;  Kirsopp  Lake's  The  Historical  Evidence 
for  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ. 
» Matthew  xxviii.,  19-20. 


58  Missionary  Motives 

.  .  .  Secondly,  there  is  the  doubt  attaching  to  all  recorded 
sayings  of  the  risen  Christ.  .  .  .  The  truth  is  that  no  one 
who  has  realised  the  actual  effect  of  critical  research  into  the 
process  by  which  the  Gosepls  came  into  their  present  form  can 
any  longer  rest  an  important  practical  duty  exclusively  upon 
any  single  or  isolated  saying  of  our  Lord  J- 

Now  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  results 
of  the  higher  criticism  are  left  severely  and  scornfully 
alone  by  missionaries  of  the  class  dealt  with  in  these 
pages.  The  possibility  of  biblical  interpolations  and 
pious  forgeries  on  the  part  of  the  early  Christians  does 
not  cause  them  the  least  perturbation.  Is  not  the  en- 
tire Bible  from  cover  to  cover  the  inspired  Word  of 
God?  Is  it  conceivable  that  God's  own  Book  can 
contain  errors?  If  God  chose  in  his  love  and  mercy 
to  grant  a  divine  revelation  to  his  people,  how  can  it 
be  admitted  for  a  moment  that  he  has  allowed  human 
hands  and  minds  to  tamper  with  the  written  records  in 
which  that  revelation  is  contained? 

Even  if  this  class  of  missionary  were  willing  to  admit 
the  vast  difference  which  science,  criticism,  and  com- 
parative religion  have  made  in  the  attitude  of  thinking 
Christians  toward  the  sacred  books  and  teachings  of 
their  faith,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  result  would  only 
be  a  greater  doctrinal  chaos  than  ever  and  a  greater 
confusion  than  exists  even  now  in  the  aims  and  methods 
of  missionaries  in  China.  The  enormous  majority 
of  the  class  to  which  I  refer  know  their  Bible  almost 
by  heart,  but  they  have  had  no  special  training  as 
theologians,  as  critics,  as  exegetes.  Most  of  them 
would  probably  repudiate  the  idea  that  any  such 
training  is  either  necessary  or  desirable.     "We  have 

I  The  American  Journal  oj  Theology,  July,  1907,  pp.  372-3.  See  also 
Kirsopp  Lake's  The  Historical  Evidence  Jor  the  Resurrection  oj  Jesus 
Christ,  pp.  86-8. 


Missionary  Motives  59 

come,"  they  might  say,  "to  estabHsh  the  Cross  among 
the  devil-ridden  heathen,  and  to  bring  them  the  soul- 
saving  gospel  of  Jesus,  not  to  advertise  the  ingenious 
sophistries  of  a  lot  of  faithless  German  professors, 
swollen  with  pride  of  intellect."  But  the  results  al- 
ready attained  by  the  higher  criticism  cannot  be  brushed 
aside  in  this  cavalier  manner.  If  only  a  fraction  of 
what  many  learned  and  conscientious  theologians  and 
critics  have  to  say  of  the  Bible  and  of  historical  Christi- 
anity be  accurate,  then  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that 
many  missionaries  are  to-day  teaching  the  Chinese 
people  things  which  are  not  true,  or  which  can  be  made 
consistent  with  truth  only  by  forced  interpretations 
and  distortions  of  language. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  obtain  statistical  informa- 
tion as  to  the  various  circumstances  in  which  young 
men  and  women  are  induced  to  devote  themselves  to 
the  missionary  life.  A  large  proportion  of  them  would 
assert  that  they  felt  a  '*call, "  but  it  is  not  so  much 
the  call  itself  that  merits  attention  as  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  call  is  received.  Judging  from  the  fre- 
quent appeals  for  missionary  recruits  that  find  place 
in  the  sermons  and  addresses  of  revivalist  preachers 
and  missionaries  at  home  on  ** furlough,"  it  seems  not 
unlikely  that  in  many  cases  the  call  comes  imder  the 
stress  of  a  strong  emotional  disturbance,  the  effects 
of  which  may  or  may  not  be  permanent.  *'Are  there 
not  some  in  this  hall  to-night,"  asks  a  mission-lec- 
turer, ''who  will  give  up  their  political  and  business 
prospects,  and  their  other  prospects,  and  go  out  to 
serve  the  Lord  in  China?  It  will  pay.  It  will  pay 
ten  thousand  times  over.  I  have  six  children.  I  covet 
nothing  else  for  them  but  that  they  should  go  as  mis- 
sionaries to  China,  or  some  other  heathen  land."^ 

^  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  iii. 


6o  Missionary  Motives 

There  are  thousands  of  headstrong  and  unstable  young 
people,  who,  while  under  the  thrilHng  influence  of  a 
powerful  speaker,  may  feel  irresistibly  impelled  to 
devote  themselves  to  religious  work  among  the  heathen ; 
and  when,  perhaps,  at  the  close  of  a  specially  stirring 
address,  the  speaker  asks  for  volunteers  for  the  mission 
field,  these  young  people  spring  forward  with  reckless 
enthusiasm  and  declare  themselves  ready  to  dedicate 
their  lives  to  God  and  the  perishing  idolaters.  In  the 
course  of  an  address  given  in  the  Queen's  Hall  in 
1909,  under  the  auspices  of  the  China  Inland  Mission, 
the  lectiurer  spoke  of  the  lack  of  recniits. 

One  wonders  [he  said]  why  it  is  that  there  should  be 
comparatively  so  few  men  offering  for  service  in  China. 
Is  there  any  higher  work?  Is  there  any  higher  calling, 
any  nobler  life-work?  Is  there  anything  grander  than  to 
be  laying  up  treasure  for  all  eternity  in  souls  won  for  Christ 
in  China?  We  may  do  soul-saving  work  at  home;  but 
think  of  China !  Think  what  an  opening  for  a  life !  What 
a  chance!  What  would  angels  not  give  to  stand  in  the 
shoes  of  some  young  men  or  women  to-day  who  have  life 
before  them,  and  who,  if  they  choose  to  do  so,  may  give 
it  to  such  a  cause  as  this!^ 

V  Speaking  of  missionary  needs  at  Changsha  in  Hunan, 
a  lecturer  said:  **In  the  first  place,  we  want  men  .  .  . 
we  plead  for  men.  The  opportunity  is  great.  Who 
will  go?  I  trust  that  here  in  this  audience  some  one 
will  respond."^  A  great  number  of  those  who  do 
respond  may  be — and  are — absolutely  unsuited,  mor- 
ally, socially,  intellectually,  and  educationally  for 
the  work  that  lies  before  them;  but  if  the  Mission 
Board  finds  them  "doctrinally  sound,"  full  of  reHgious 
fervour,  and  absolutely  convinced  that  God  has  vouch- 

«  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  loi.  "  Ibid.,  p.  106. 


Missionary  Motives  6i 

V  )safed  a  ''call/'  there  is  small  reason  to  anticipate  that 
it  will  reject  them  as  unfit.     Is  it  to  be  marvelled  at 
that  mistakes  are  numerous  and  serious,  and  sometimes 
I  terribly  far-reaching  in  their  effects? 

Dr.  Rashdall  has  drawn  attention  to  the  strange 
fact  that 

serious  enthusiasm  for  missions  tends  to  be  associated 
with  a  rather  narrow  theology.  The  greatest  of  the 
missionary  societies  of  the  English  Church  is  largely  in 
the  hands  of  the  narrowest  section  of  the  narrowest  party 
in  that  Chiu-ch.  The  authorities  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  have  been  known  to  refuse  an  admirably  qualified 
candidate  of  otherwise  evangelical  opinions  on  account 
of  a  measure  of  sympathy  with  critical  theology  which  few 
of  oiu"  present  bishops  would  disclaim.^ 

The  narrow  theological  views  of  many  missionaries 
— apart  from  their  too-frequent  lack  of  a  liberaHsing 
secular  education — must  tend  to  make  them  cold  and 
unsympathetic  towards  the  alien  beliefs  and  practices 
with  which  they  come  into  daily  contact.  I  do  not 
wish  to  assert  that  they  necessarily  show  aloofness  or 
arrogance  in  their  dealings  with  non- Christians ;  their 
principles,  as  a  rule,  save  them  from  that  danger. 
But  their  lack  of  sympathetic  insight  into,  and  com- 
prehension of,  heathen  religions  and  social  customs, 
very  frequently  leads  them  to  form  ludicrously  ex- 
aggerated estimates  of  the  sins  and  shortcomings  of 
their  heathen  neighbours.  In  a  review  of  a  book 
on  China,  written  by  a  laywoman,  occurs  the  follow- 
ing observation:  "The  chapter  on  missionary  work 
contains  a  statement  which  involves  the  highest  com- 
pliment which  could  be  paid  to  missionaries.  *A  dis- 
tinguished feature  of   (English)  missionaries'  is  that 

'  The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1907,  p.  369. 


62  Missionary  Motives 

*they  always  seem  to  like  the  Chinese/"^  Possibly 
they  do;  but  it  will  be  admitted  by  any  one  who  is 
familiar  with  the  published  letters  and  narratives  of 
missionaries  that  they  often  seem  to  take  exceptional 
pains  to  conceal  their  liking.  Considering  that  the 
missionaries  claim  to  be  the  bearers  of  a  gospel  of 
good-will  and  charity,  it  is  an  extraordinary  thing  that 
the  most  unflattering  and  (as  I  believe)  most  ungenerous 
portrayals  of  the  Chinese  character  have  come  from 
the  pens  of  Christian  missionaries.  If  the  Chinese 
people  wished  to  obtain  a  testimonial  of  character 
from  their  foreign  guests,  I  fancy  that  the  mission- 
ary body  is  the  last  to  which  they  would  apply.  This, 
it  will  be  said,  is  for  the  excellent  reason  that  the 
missionary  body  knows  more  than  any  other  section 
of  foreigners  about  the  Chinese  sins  and  vices;  but  an 
explanation  of  this  kind  is  hardly  satisfactory,  for  it 
does  not  justify  the  missionaries  in  making  light  of, 
or  explaining  away,  as  they  so  often  do,  the  good 
points  of  the  Chinese  character.  We  find  in  practice 
that  just  as  it  is  the  missionaries  who  paint  our  bad 
qualities  in  the  most  lurid  colours,  so  it  is  the  mission- 
aries (with,  of  course,  a  few  notable  exceptions)  who 
touch  most  lightly  and  with  the  least  enthusiasm  on 
such  of  our  qualities  as  are  worthy  of  praise.  Does 
any  one  need  to  be  told  that  the  following  description 
of  the  Chinese  character — almost  amusing  in  its  wild 
over-statements — ^is  from  the  pen  of  a  missionary? 

Facts  of  daily  occurrence,  brought  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  missionaries,  and  frequently  gained  through  the 
medium  of  the  missionary  hospital,  revealed  the  prevalence 
of  the  most  fearful  immoralities  among  the  people,  and 
furnished  a  melancholy  insight  into  the  desolating  horrors 
of  Paganism.     Female  infanticide,  openly  confessed,  legal- 

»  The  East  and  the  West,  Jan.,  1909,  p.  114. 


Missionary  Motives  63 

ised  by  custom,  and  divested  of  disgrace  by  its  frequency; 
the  scarcity  of  females,  leading  as  a  consequence  to  a  variety 
of  crimes  habitually  staining  the  domestic  hearth;  the 
dreadful  prevalence  of  all  the  vices  charged  by  the  apostle 
Paul  upon  the  ancient  heathen  world;  the  alarming  extent 
of  opium  indulgence,  destroying  the  productiveness  and 
natural  resources  of  the  people;  the  universal  practice  of 
lying,  and  suspicion  of  dishonesty  between  man  and  man; 
the  unblushing  lewdness  of  old  and  young;  the  full,  im- 
checked  torrent  of  human  depravity  borne  along  in  its 
tempestuous  channel,  and  inundating  the  social  system 
with  the  overflowing  of  ungodliness,  prove  the  existence  of 
a  kind  and  degree  of  moral  degradation  among  a  people, 
of  which  an  excessive  statement  can  scarcely  be  made, 
and  of  which  an  adequate  conception  can  rarely  be  formed.^ 

This  astonishing  paragraph,  it  is  true,  was  written  a 
good  many  years  ago;  but  the  Chinese  character  has 
undergone  no  transformation  in  the  last  forty  years, 
and  if  we  deserved  this  criticism  then  we  deserve 
it  still.  I  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  saying  that  not  a 
single  lay  European  or  American  who  has  lived  in 
China  and  has  formed  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
Chinese  character  will  feel  inclined  to  endorse  the  whole- 
sale condemnations  which  have  been  uttered  by  minis- 
ters of  the  Christian  gospel.  Certainly  they  would 
not  be  endorsed  by  one  whose  opinion  is  as  much 
entitled  to  respect  as  that  of  any  missionary,  and  who, 
being  himself  a  sincere  Christian  and  a  friend  to  mis- 
sions, is  hardly  likely  to  write  in  a  spirit  of  contradic- 
tion to  missionary  opinion. 

The  cruelties  of  the  Boxers  [says  Sir  Robert  Hart] 
and  the  worse  than  callousness  of  too  many  of  those  in 

^The  Rev.  George  Smith,  church  missionary  for  many  years  in 
China,  quoted  in  the  Rev.  Justus  Doolittle's  Social  Life  oj  the  Chinese^ 
pp.  591-2  (London,  1868). 


64  Missionary  Motives 

power  cannot  be  too  harshly  described  or  too  severely 
dealt  with,  and  that  the  people  as  a  nation  have  the  defects 
of  their  qualities  can  as  little  be  gainsaid;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  must  as  freely  be  allowed  that  the  Chinese  do 
possess  quite  as  large  a  share  of  admirable  qualities  as  others, 
and  that  these  are  not  merely  to  be  found  in  isolated  cases 
here  and  there,  but  are  characteristic  of  the  race  as  a  whole 
and  the  civilisation  it  has  developed.  They  are  well 
behaved,  law-abiding,  intelligent,  economical,  and  indus- 
trious; they  can  learn  anything  and  do  anything;  they  are 
punctiliously  polite,  they  worship  talent,  and  they  believe 
in  right  so  firmly  that  they  scorn  to  think  it  requires  to.be 
supported  or  enforced  by  might;  they  delight  in  literature, 
and  everywhere  they  have  their  literary  clubs  and  coteries 
for  hearing  and  discussing  each  other's  essays  and  verses; 
they  possess  and  practise  an  admirable  system  of  ethics,  and 
they  are  generous,  charitable,  and  fond  of  good  works;  they 
never  forget  a  favour,  they  make  rich  return  for  any  kind- 
ness, and,  though  they  know  money  will  buy  service,  a 
man  must  be  more  than  wealthy  to  win  public  esteem  and 
respect;  they  are  practical,  teachable,  and  wonderfully 
gifted  with  common-sense;  they  are  excellent  artisans, 
reliable  workmen,  and  of  a  good  faith  that  every  one  acknow- 
ledges and  admires  in  their  commercial  dealings;  in  no  coun- 
try that  is  or  was  has  the  commandment  ''Honour  thy 
father  and  thy  mother"  been  so  religiously  obeyed  or  so 
fully  and  without  exception  given  effect  to,  and  it  is  in 
fact  the  keynote  of  their  family,  social,  official,  and  na- 
tional life,  and  because  it  is  so  **  their  days  are  long  in  the 
land"  God  has  given  them.  Respect,  and  not  contempt; 
conciliation,  and  not  dictation;  appreciation,  and  not  differ- 
ential treatment;  try  this  prescription  and  you  will  have 
a  healthy  body  politic,  and  until  this  is  done  it  will  be  the 


(If  these  two  character-sketches  of  the   Chinese — 

*  These  from  the  Land  of  Sinim,  by  Sir  Robert  Hart,  Bart.,  G.C.M.G., 
pp.  141-3  (London:  Chapman  &  Hall,  1901).     (Italics  not  in  original.) 


Missionary  Motives  65 

the  first  by  the  Rev.  George  Smith,  missionary,  the 
second  by  Sir  Robert  Hart,  Inspector-General  of 
Customs — were  put  side  by  side  and  laid  before  an 
impartial  visitor  from  another  planet,  it  would  be 
difficult  for  him  to  realise  that  both  writers  were  re- 
ferring to  the  same  people.  Is  it  surprising  that  the 
Chinese  are  regarded  as  a  mysterious  and  incompre- 
hensible race?  However,  the  slanders  and  viHfications 
heaped  upon  us  by  an  inferior  though  nimierous  class 
of  Christian  missionaries  cease  to  be  a  source  of  serious 
annoyance  to  us  when  we  make  the  discovery  that 
abuse  of  a  very  similar  kind  is  levelled  at  the  heads 
of  the  missionaries'  own  countrymen.  Referring  to 
the  conditions  of  mission  work  at  Changsha  (from 
which  town  all  missionaries  were  not  long  ago  ejected 
by  riotous  mobs,  and  to  which  they  of  course  returned 
as  soon  as  their  wrecked  mission-buildings  had  been 
made  habitable  again),  a  writer  in  China's  Millions 
makes  these  remarks:  ''The  lives  of  non-Christian 
foreigners  who  have  flocked  in  since  Changsha  was 
made  an  open  port,  and  who  have  come  only  for 
financial  gain,  add  greatly  to  the  difficulty  of  the 
work."^  This  is  a  mild  criticism.  A  more  outspoken 
writer  laments  that  **the  same  steamer  that  brings 
to  non-Christian  nations  Western  goods  brings  also 
Western  books  and  periodicals.  The  brutal,  immoral 
trader  arrives  on  the  same  ship  with  the  missionary; 
Bibles  and  whiskey  speed  across  the  Pacific  in  the  same 
cargo.  "^  It  seems  almost  surprising,  after  this,  that 
rather  than  travel  in  company  with  brutal,  immoral 
traders,  the  missionaries  do  not  charter  vessels  of 
their  own,  which  they  could  have  thoroughly  fumigated 
and  exorcised  before  each  voyage,  and  manned  by  a 

*  China's  Millions,  November,   1909,  p.  165. 
«  The  Chinese  Recorder,  December,  1909,  p.  694. 
S 


66  Missionary  Motives 

carefully-selected  crew  sworn  to  an  abstinence  from 
bad  words,  and  wholly  immersed  not  in  whiskey  but  in 
piety  and  good  works.  Has  it  never  occurred  to  these 
religious  persons  that  were  it  not  for  '*the  brutal, 
immoral  trader"  there  would  be  far  less  money  than 
is  now  forthcoming  in  America  and  Europe  for  the 
support  of  foreign  missions? 

Another  missionary  writer  goes  farther  still  in  his 
criticisms  of  the  failings  of  his  coimtrymen.  "The 
foreign  concessions  in  the  treaty  ports  of  the  Far  East 
are  Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs — worse,  I  believe,  than 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  of  old,  because  more  intelligently, 
more  deliberately,  wicked.  All  the  vices  of  our  Western 
civilisation  are  pouring  into  the  Far  East."^  One 
may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  ask  whether,  after  some 
years  spent  in  proximity  to  four  hundred  milUon 
vicious  Chinese  and  several  thousand  vicious  Europeans 
and  Americans,  the  missionaries  themselves  may  not 
run  a  serious  risk  of  some  slight  -moral  contami- 
nation. 

In  1908  a  deeply-interesting  letter  from  a  young 
Chinese  Christian  student  in  the  United  States  was 
published  in  an  American  magazine."  The  extreme 
candour  with  which,  though  a  Christian  convert,  he 
criticises  the  work  of  Christian  missionaries  in  China 
and  the  influence  of  Christianity  itself  in  America, 
is  partly  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  letter  was 
not  originally  intended  for  publication;  but  this  adds 
to  rather  than  detracts  from  its  interest.  I  have  no 
space  for  the  whole  letter,  but  the  following  extracts 
will  sufficiently  indicate  its  general  character: 

'  This  is  quoted  in  the  Overland  China  Mail  (Hongkong)  of  March  29, 
1 9 10.  The  following  is  the  editorial  comment:  "Of  course  we  know 
that  we  are  a  pretty  bad  lot,  but  surely  this  reverend  gentleman 
is   painting  too  lurid  a  picture." 

a  The  American  Journal  oj  Sociology,  July,  1908. 


Missionary  Motives  67 

So  great  my  admiration  and  worship  of  the  Western 
civilisation  has  been  and  still  is;  so  deeply  have  I  been 
intoxicated  with  Christianity  while  in  Christian  schools 
at  home  and  abroad,  and  still  am;  so  predominantly  I  have 
been  influenced  and  attracted  by  the  good  Christians  and 
missionaries,  and  still  am ;  and  their  influence  upon  me  is, 
after  all,  not  bad,  but  beneficent  and  ennobling,  I  think. 
Yet,  miserable  me!  in  spite  of  all,  I  cannot  help  feeling 
an  irresistible  reaction  in  my  spirit  and  soul.  I  have  some- 
thing against  the  Christians  as  such,  and  their  conceptions 
of  Christianity. 

At  first  I  thought  that  the  enlightened  West  knows 
China  with  her  people  and  civilisation,  and  knows  us  better 
than  the  so-called  ignorant  and  uncivilised  China  knows 
the  great  modem  and  proud  world.  But  really,  is  there 
any  difference  between  the  Chinese  as  knowers  of  others 
and  others  as  knowers  of  the  Chinese?  I  can  tell  you 
only  truly  and  respectfully  that  there  is  too  much  ignorance 
even  in  the  circle  of  university  men  here.  You  can  tell 
the  rest  yourself.     .     .     . 

I  think  the  missionaries,  in  spite  of  their  good-will, 
noble  devotion,  and  unselfish  work,  have  done  more  harm  to 
China  than  good;  they  have  done  more  harm  than  any  other 
people  from  the  West,  politicians  and  traders,  and  the 
greatest  of  all  these  harms  is  that  China  has  been  made 
unknown  and,  much  worse,  misunderstood.  Consciously 
and  unconsciously,  purposefully  and  indifferently,  directly 
and  indirectly  (such  as  through  statesmen,  travellers, 
etc.),  missionaries  make  misrepresentations  and  thereby 
cause  the  Western  people  to  form  misunderstandings. 
It  may  be  that  I  can  as  well  say  that  the  missionaries  have 
played  upon  the  people  and  made  fools  of  them.  Am  I 
saying  too  much?  Of  course  I  am  addressing  now  the 
intelligent  people. 

The  missionaries,  generally  speaking,  are  confined 
within  the  low  parts  of  China's  civilisation.  They  come 
into  contact  with  the  worst  element  of  China's  citizenship 
and  morality.     It  has  been,  furthermore,  their  interest  and 


68  Missionary  Motives 

habit  so  see  the  dark  and  gloomy  side  of  China.  The 
truth  is  that  the  missionary  attitude  in  China  has  been 
largely  egotistic  fault-finding,  almost  never  wholesome 
criticism.  V/hen  they  write  home,  they  usually  draw 
pictures  of  the  worst  things  that  they  have  seen,  and  often 
give  bad  interpretations  of  good  things.  When  they  come 
home,  they  tell  the  people  of  abnormal  and  unusual  cases 
that  they  know  of.  Of  course  the  purpose  of  the  mis- 
sionaries is  to  appeal  to  the  missionary  sympathy  of  their 
own  countrymen.  They  want  to  arouse  and  revive  their 
missionary  spirit  and  work  up  and  stir  up  missionary  en- 
thusiasm. I  do  henceforth  ask  for  a  fair  and  square 
answer  to  my  honest  and  sincere  question,  '^  Who  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  misconception  of  things  Chinese  in  this 
large  Western  part  of  the  world?" 

...  I  should  like  to  add  that,  as  far  as  personal 
characters,  morality,  and  relations  are  concerned,  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  in  my  own  experience  I  have  been  unable 
to  find  much  difference  between  Christians  and  non- 
Christians  in  this  country.  The  fact  is  that  non-Christians 
treat  me  as  well  as  the  Christians,  if  not  better. 

Patriotism  is  now  my  decided  journey  of  life.  For 
China,  our  dear,  great,  and  old  country,  I  am  very  wiUing, 
if  it  is  necessary,  even  to  sacrifice  my  insignificant  self 
and  give  it  in  exchange  for  the  sacred  habitation  of  our  dear 
ancestors  and  the  happy  land  of  our  beloved  successors. 
For  the  salvation  of  China  I  am  even  willing  to  damn  my 
soul,  if  necessary.  .  .  . 

In  short,  my  position,  forcibly  expressed,  amounts  to 
this:  Rather  China  without  Christianity  than  Christianity 
without  China, 

Remember  the  fact  that  from  the  Chinese  standpoint 
the  students  here  have  many  things  to  tell  their  fellow- 
countrymen  when  they  return  home,  and,  if  they  will,  to 
the  great  discredit  and  shame  of  Christian  America. 

Should  you  missionaries  and  Americanised  Christians, 
fortunately  few,  he  more  cautious,  considerate,  and  sym- 
pathetic, we  would  rejoice  and  bless  you  greatly.     Then 


Missionary  Motives  69 

most  Chinese  will  help  you  too.  Or  I  seem  to  see  as  if 
they  were  clouds,  darkness,  and  dangers  coming  to  cover 
and  overwhelm  them.  Certainly  one-sided  and  bigoted 
Christianity  is  doomed.  Modern  China  will  not  tolerate 
it. 

I  can  assure  my  Western  readers  that  the  opinions 
of  this  young  Chinese  student,  though  his  remarks 
are  based  only  on  his  own  experience,  are  not  the 
opinions  of  himself  alone.  He  has  given  them  vig- 
orous expression,  but  not  more  vigorous,  in  my  opinion 
at  least,  than  the  occasion  demands.  More  than  one 
Chinese,  on  reading  this  letter,  rejoiced  to  know  that 
in  the  not  distant  future  this  young  student  might 
be  able,  from  the  vantage  ground  of  high  office  in  his 
own  country,  to  help  in  the  great  work  that  lies  before 
every  educated  and  capable  man  and  boy  in  this  empire 
— the  work  of  completely  recovering  the  sovereign 
rights  of  China  throughout  the  limits  of  her  own  terri- 
tory, and  of  making  her  fully  worthy  of  the  splendid 
future  which  lies  before  her  and  of  the  great  position 
that  she  is  destined  to  occupy  among  the  nations  of 
the  world. 

I  did  not  quote  from  this  letter  for  its  own  sake  only, 
remarkable  as  it  is;  I  wished  to  refer  to  it  rather  on 
account  of  the  ignorant  criticism  and  simulated  scorn 
with  which  it  has  been  greeted  in  missionary  circles. 
One  missionary  asserts  that  **  there  are  few,  if  any, 
healthy-minded  yoimg  Chinese  to-day  holding  any 
such  ideas.'*  Whether  this  is  true  or  not  perhaps  de- 
pends on  the  exact  signification  of  ^'healthy-minded." 
The  missionary  would  doubtless  hold  that  to  criticise 
adversely  any  aspect  of  Christianity,  or  of  missionary 
enterprise,  ipso  facto  denotes  a  mind  diseased.  He  goes 
on  to  characterise  the  opinions  expressed  in  the  letter 
as  "absurd,"  and  concludes  that  '4f  claiming  to  be 


70  Missionary  Motives 

representative  of  the  views  of  young  Chinese,  or 
even  the  few  who  have  studied  abroad,  they  aire 
ridiculous.'*^  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that 
the  writer  of  the  letter  made  no  ** claim"  of  any  kind. 
He  did  not  presume  to  be  giving  the  opinions  of  ^*  young 
Chinese"  in  general,  but  the  opinions  which  he  himself 
had  formed  as  a  result  of  his  personal  experiences  in 
a  Christian  country.  But  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 
that  a  very  large  number  of  his  fellow-students  would 
endorse  the  views  which  he  has  so  clearly  and  forcibly 
expressed. 

^  The  Chinese  Recorder,  April,  1909,  p.  223. 


CHAPTER '  V  ^ 

RELIGIOUS  TOLERANCE  IN  CHINA 

THE  Chinese  are  not  and  never  were  intolerant  of 
Christianity  regarded  strictly  as  a  reHgion; 
though  it  is  quite  true  that  a  large  and  ever-increasing 
section  of  the  student-class  regards  many  Christian 
beliefs — and  many  traditional  native  beliefs — as  puerile 
superstitions.  Few  but  missionaries  are  ever  heard 
to  deny  the  existence  of  religious  tolerance  among  the 
people  of  China,  or  ever  attempt  to  minimise  its 
significance.  Laymen  whose  knowledge  of  China  is 
quite  as  good  as  that  of  most  missionaries  and  who 
approach  all  Chinese  problems  in  a  far  more  charitable 
and  open-minded  spirit,  admit  that  in  this  matter 
the  Chinese  people  have  nothing  to  learn  from  Europe 
or  America,  and  indeed  might  more  appropriately 
play  the  part  of  teachers.  Prof.  E.  H.  Parker,  for 
instance,  remarks  that  **  it  is  surely  very  much  to 
China's  credit  that  at  no  period  of  her  history  have  the 
ruHng  powers  'in  being'  ever  for  one  instant  refused 
hospitality  and  consideration  to  any  reHgion  recom- 
mended to  them  as  such.  If  there  has  been  hostility, 
it  has  always  sprung  up  from  poHtical  and  economi- 
cal causes.'*     A  few  pages  farther  on  he  points  out 

that  the  Chinese  Government  has  always  been  one 
of  the  broadest-minded  and  the  most  liberally-inclined 
towards  pure  religion;  that  it  has  never  persecuted  to  the 

71 


72  Religious  Tolerance  in  China 

merciless  and  cruel  extent  once  so  common  all  over  Europe; 
and  that  when  it  has  seemed  to  persecute  at  all,  it  has 
really  only  defended  what  it  honestly  believed  to  be  its 
own  political  rights;  it  has  never  encouraged  religious 
spite,  mental  tyranny,  or  the  stifling  of  any  free  opinion 
that  keeps  clear  of  State  policy,  scandal,  or  libel.  European 
Christianity  obtained  three  centuries  ago  a  reception  as 
generous  as  the  earlier  foreign  religions  had  met  with ;  there 
was  no  trace  of  sanctioned  persecution  until  personal 
interests,  official  appointments,  and  political  questions 
came  to  the  fore.  .  .  .  And  as  regards  the  Protestants  of 
our  day,  if  they  can  only  go  about  their  charitable  business 
without  sneering  at  the  Catholics;  refrain  from  harshly 
criticising  subjects  dear  to  Chinese  prejudice;  and  not 
allow  themselves  to  be  made  tools  of  by  mercenary  natives, 
there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  they  should  not  for  ever 
enjoy  the  toleration  which  the  Chinese  have  always  been 
disposed  to  extend  to  religion  qua  religion.  The  same 
remarks  of  course  apply  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  the 
nineteenth  century  up  to  the  present  time,  and  to  their 
behaviour  towards  Protestants.^ 

Almost  fanatically  intolerant  themselves,  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  last  century,  and  many  of  those  of  our 
own  time,  were  and  are  not  chivalrous  enough  to  give 
credit  to  the  Chinese  for  the  tolerant  spirit  which  they 
have  always  shown  towards  alien  religions  as  such.^ 
Our  foreign  guests  either  deny  altogether  that  such 
tolerance  exists,  or  if  compelled  to  admit  the  fact  they 
try  to  explain  it  away:  anything  rather  than  grant  that 
the  Chinese  possess  a  virtue  unknown  to  Christen- 

1  China  and  Religion,  pp.  2,  6-7  (John  Murray,  1905). 

2  "So  far  as  religion  pure  and  simple  is  concerned,  the  Chinese  bear 
the  palm,  among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  for  toleration;  and  the 
presumption  is  therefore  irresistibly  strong  that  it  is  never  the  religious 
but  some  other  element  in  the  missionary  compost  that  rouses  the 
passions  of  the  Chinese." — Alexander  Michie,  Missionaries  in  China, 
p.  8  (Tientsin,  1893). 


Religious  Tolerance  in  China  73 

dom.^  The  pages  of  writers  like  Dr.  Edkins,  who  died 
not  long  ago,  abound  in  indications  of  a  similar  un- 
generous attitude.  Referring  to  a  conversation  which 
he  had  with  a  native  scholar,  Dr.  Edkins  writes  thus: 

He  said  to  me  on  one  occasion:  "All  countries  have  their 
sages.  We  have  Confucius.  Buddha  was  the  sage  of 
India.  The  Mongols  have  the  Dalai  Lama,  and  the 
Mohammedans  Mahomet.  You  in  the  West  have  Jesus. 
It  is  necessarily  so  in  the  arrangements  of  Heaven."  .  .  . 
This  show  of  liberality  is  very  common  with  the  Chinese 
when  conversing  with  foreigners  upon  Christianity.  It 
springs  partly  from  poHteness,  which  induces  them  to  admit, 
for  the  time,  the  equahty  of  the  religion  of  their  foreign 
interlocutor  with  their  own.  It  comes  in  part,  also,  from 
the  circumstance  that  they  do  not  claim  a  divine  character 
for  Confucius.  They  regard  him  as  nothing  more  than  the 
wisest  of  men.  They  never  speak  of  him  as  God,  nor  do 
they  claim  inspiration  for  his  words.  They  can  afford, 
then,  to  admit  that  other  religions  are  as  suitable  for  other 
nations  as  theirs  is  for  them,  if  they  enjoin  a  good  morality.^ 

That  Dr.  Edkins  should  have  failed  to  give  the 
Chinese  full  and  generous  credit  for  the  virtue — if 
it  may  be  so  called — of  reHgious  tolerance,  is  all  the 
more  remarkable  when  we  find  that  he  himself  had 
abimdant  proof  given  him  of  the  prevalence  of  that 
virtue.  So  strong,  however,  was  his  bias  against 
*' heathendom"  that  he  failed  to  see  how  poorly  his 
own  attitude  compared  with  that  of  the  mere  heathen, 
even  when  his  own  version  of  his  experiences  was  the 

^  One  of  the  early  Protestant  missionaries — the  Rev.  Charles  Gutzlaff 
— while  admitting  that  in  China  "there  exists  the  most  perfect  tolera- 
tion, "  explains  this  by  alleging  the  complete  indifference  of  the  Chinese 
to  matters  affecting  religion,  and  points  out  that  "nobody  will  quarrel 
for  anything  he  views  with  contempt."  {China  Opened^  vol.  ii.,  p. 
184.)     The  Chinese  have  no  contempt  for  religion. 

^Religion  in   China,  pp.   74-5. 


74  Religious  Tolerance  in  China 

only  one  available  for  a  comparison.  For  example, 
he  thus  describes  a  visit  to  a  famous  Buddhist  monas- 
tery near  Hangchow: 

The  priests  of  this  old  monastery  still  entertain  visitors 
hospitably.  The  abbot  was  very  friendly  in  his  manner 
when  my  companion  and  I  were  there,  so  much  so  that  he 
recommended  an  adjoining  piece  of  ground  for  building 
a  Christian  temple.  He  thought  that  the  Buddhist  and 
Christian  religions  might  be  maintained  very  harmoniously 
in  this  close  proximity  to  each  other.  He  added  some 
remarks  on  the  hostility  shown  by  Christian  missionaries 
to  idolatry,  and  recommended  that  they  should  exhibit 
what  he  chose  to  represent  as  a  more  liberal  spirit,  and 
cease  from  their  attacks  upon  the  customs  of  other 
religions.^ 

I  make  no  comment  on  this  most  significant  passage, 
but  confidently  leave  it  to  the  impartial  consideration 
of  those  to  whom  this  book  is  addressed. 

That  this  was  not  an  isolated  case  of  Buddhist 
tolerance  there  is  abimdant  evidence  to  prove.  The 
books  and  articles  written  by  European  missionaries 
themselves  are  amply  sufficient  to  provide  illustrations 
of  the  startling  contrast  between  the  tolerant  attitude 
of  the  Chinese  Buddhists  and  the  barbarous  intolerance 
(for  so  we  Chinese  regard  it)  of  the  Christians. 

This  is  how  the  Rev.  Charles  Gutzlaff  describes  his 
visit  to  a  great  monastic  establishment  on  the  coast  of 
China: 

Though  we  were  in  a  dark  hall,  standing  before  the 
largest  image  of  Buddha,  there  was  nothing  impressive; 
even  our  English  sailors  were  disgusted  with  the  scene; 
several  times  I  raised  my  voice  to  invite  all  to  adore  God 
in  spirit  and  in  truth,  but  the  minds  of  the  priests  seemed 

^  Religion  in  China,  p.  69. 


Religious  Tolerance  in  China  75 

callous,  and  a  mere  assent  is   all  that  this  exhortation 
produced. ' 

The  Chinese  monks  may  have  been  callous  but 
they  at  least  appear  to  have  behaved  like  gentlemen, 
which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  their  European 
visitors.  The  reference  to  the  opinions  of  the  EngHsh 
sailors — who  doubtless  followed  the  lead  of  their 
reverend  cicerone  in  expressing  their  disgust — seems 
scarcely  necessary;  the  average  English  bluejacket 
is  not  usually  appealed  to  on  points  of  ecclesiastical 
architecture  or  Buddhistic  art.  As  for  the  several 
abortive  attempts  to  engage  the  whole  company  in  a 
Christian  prayer,  one  speculates  in  vain  as  to  what 
more  could  reasonably  have  been  expected  from  the 
attendant  Buddhists  than  a  somewhat  frigid  ^'assent." 
Perhaps  not  even  that  meagre  coiu*tesy  would  be 
forthcoming  from  the  clergy  of  an  English  parish 
church  if  a  party  of  Chinese  visitors  were  to  invite 
them  to  join  in  a  hymn  of  praise  to  Confucius  or  to 
Buddha.  It  might  even  happen  that  the  Chinese 
visitors  would  be  bundled  unceremoniously  out  of 
the   building. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Gutzlaff  failed  to  observe  anything 
good  in  the  priests  of  Buddha.  **  Scarcely  had  we 
landed^  when  a  party  of  priests,  in  common  garbs  and 
very  filthy,  hastened  down  to  us  chanting  hymns." 
He  admits — in  spite  of  his  uncharitable,  exaggerated, 
and  inaccurate  remarks  about  the  priests — that  the 
Buddhists  had  selected  a  most  attractive  spot  in  which 

^  Quoted  in  Doolittle's  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese,  p.  190  (London, 
1868). 

=  These  passages  are  taken  from  Gutzlaff 's  Journal  of  a  Voyage  along 
the  Coast  of  China,  1832-3,  quoted  in  Sir  John  Davis's  The  Chinese 
(185 1  ed.),  vol.  ii.,  pp.  186^;  and  from  Gutzlaff 's  China  Opened,  vol.  i., 
p.  116.  Gutzlaff  is  describing  his  arrival  at  the  beautiful  Buddhist 
island  of  Pootoo  (P'u-t'o),  off  the  coast  of  Chehkiang. 


76  Religious  Tolerance  in  China 

to  celebrate  what  he  calls  "the  orgies  of  idolatry." 
It  is  ''like  a  fairyland,"  he  says,  "so  romantic  is 
everything  that  meets  the  eye";  but  he  also  takes  care 
to  describe  the  place  as  "the  infamous  seat  of  abomina- 
tion." This  is  because  its  heathen  ceremonies  filled 
his  austerely  Protestant  soul  with  shocked  surprise. 
"The  same  words,"  he  says,  "were  a  hundred  times 
repeated.  None  of  the  officiating  persons  showed 
any  interest  in  the  ceremony,  for  some  were  looking 
around,  laughing  and  joking,  while  others  muttered 
their  ^  prayers.  The  few  people  who  were  present, 
not  to  attend  the  worship  but  to  gaze  at  us,  did  not 
seem  in  the  least  degree  to  feel  the  solemnity  of  the 
service." 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Gutzlaff  said  that  Pootoo  was  like  a 
fairyland,  and  he  was  right ;  but  he  would  have  done 
well  to  omit  his  description  of  the  "orgies,"  for  he 
merely  reveals  the  fact  that  he  was  totally  incapable 
of  appreciating  the  Oriental  attitude  towards  the 
celebration  of  religious  rites.  His  description  of  the 
"laughing  and  joking"  is  an  exaggeration;  but  it  is 
quite  true  that  in  China,  as  in  other  Oriental  countries, 
it  is  not  considered  necessary  to  cultivate  a  special 
solemnity  of  demeanour  for  ordinary  non-official 
religious  ceremonials.  The  religious  attitude  which 
conveniently,  if  inaccurately,  may  be  described  as 
Puritanism  is,  or  would  be,  abhorrent  to  the  average 
Eastern  mind.  This  need  hardly  be  wondered  at 
when  we  remember  that  even  in  Protestant  Europe 
and  America  a  relish  for  Sabbatarian  gloom  is  an 
acquired  taste.  When  I  was  a  student  in  England 
I  knew  a  family  of  children  who  were  always  getting 
into  trouble  for  "irreverence"  in  church,  and  for 
restlessness  during  litany  and  sermon.  When  their 
parents  proposed  to  take  them  to  a  theatre  or  other 


Religious  Tolerance  in  China  77 

place  of  amusement  they  used  to  plot  and  intrigue 
with  a  view  to  so  arranging  matters  that  the  evening 
selected  should  be  a  Saturday.  Their  reason  for  this — 
they  were  careful  to  keep  it  a  dark  secret  from  their 
parents — was  based  on  the  useful  domestic  fiction 
that  if  children  sat  up  late  at  night  they  must  neces- 
sarily be  in  a  state  of  physical  prostration  the  next 
day;  hence  if  the  next  day  were  a  Sunday  they  ex- 
perienced the  enormous  satisfaction  of  being  "let 
off  church/'  Now  Oriental  children  do  not  have  to 
plot  and  intrigue  and  deceive  their  parents,  in  the 
hope  of  escaping  from  attendance  at  a  religious  cere- 
mony. If  they  do  not  wish  to  attend,  no  one  would 
dream  of  compelling  them  to  do  so,  though  probably 
nothing  but  illness  would  induce  them  to  stay  away; 
and  if  during  the  "service"  they  fidget  a  little  or  even 
go  so  far  as  audibly  to  express  their  dissatisfaction 
with  the  proceedings  it  would  never  occur  to  any  one 
to  cuff  them  or  whisper  dark  threats  of  impending 
punishment.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  in  the  East 
religious  reverence  is  not  necessarily  associated  with 
a  long  face  and  prim  manners,  explains  how  it  is  that 
European  missionaries,  like  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  refer  so 
constantly  to  what  they  suppose  to  be  the  lack  of 
reverence  shown  by  Orientals  at  their  temple  services; 
and  it  may  also  help  to  explain  why  the  detestable 
vice  of  religious  hypocrisy  is  so  seldom  found  among 
the  adherents  of  Oriental  faiths. 

This,  however,  is  by  the  way.  Let  us  pass,  in  imagin- 
ation, over  the  eighty  years  that  have  elapsed  since 
Gutzlaff  paid  his  pioneer  visit  to  Pootoo.  The  "orgies 
of  idolatry,"  we  find,  are  still  performed  there  daily 
in  the  splendid  temples  that  are  man's  contribution 
to  the  beauty  of  that  most  charming  of  Chinese  islands. 
So  far  from  there  being  any  alteration  in  the  tolerant 


78  Religious  Tolerance  in  China 

attitude  of  the  Buddhist  monks  towards  the  teachers 
of  a  rival  faith,  it  seems  that  lapse  of  time  has  only- 
served  to  emphasise  that  attitude.  The  following 
significant  paragraph,  entitled  "A  Christian  Conference 
in  a  Monastery,"  is  taken  from  a  missionary  joiimal 
pubHshed  as  recently  as  August,  1909: 

The  sacred  island  of  Pootoo  is  well  known  as  one  of 
the  chief  pilgrim  resorts  for  Buddhist  devotees  in  Eastern 
China.  The  monasteries  of  this  island  have  recently  been 
the  scene  of  a  well-attended  conference  organised  by  the 
Chinese  Y.M.C.A.  It  is  remarkable  that  no  difficulty 
was  experienced  in  arranging  for  the  accommodation  in  the 
largest  monasteries  of  these  Christian  workers,  who  held 
their  meetings,  sang  their  hymns  of  praise,  and  joined  in 
daily  prayer  to  the  true  God  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  precincts  devoted  for  ages  to  the  Buddhist  form  of  re- 
ligion. In  order  to  comply  as  far  as  possible  with  the 
requirements  of  the  island  the  members  of  the  conference 
became  vegetarians  during  the  twelve  days  of  their  stay. 

We  may  be  pardoned  for  looking  upon  this  as  a  happy 
augury  of  the  coming  conquest  of  Buddhism  by  Christianity 
in  China.  Buddhism  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  devotional 
life  has  already  marked  for  contemplation  some  of  the 
loveliest  places  to  be  found  in  China.  No  Christian  will 
desire  to  overthrow  these  sites,  which  stand  as  a  perpetual 
witness  to  the  religious  need  and  aspiration  of  man,  but 
will  surely  work  to  accomplish  the  time  when,  in  all  such 
places,  superstition  and  the  worship  of  idols  shall  give  place 
to  the  praise  of  Almighty  God,  and  when  the  erstwhile 
Buddhist  temple  shall  testify  to  the  glory  of  His  holy 
name.  No  cost  in  sacrifice,  consistent  with  devotion 
to  the  truth  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  would  be  counted  too 
great,  which  secured  such  a  result.' 

The  members  of  the  Conference  were  evidently  more 

»  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  422. 


Religious  Tolerance  in  China  79 

broad-minded  than  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  who  would 
doubtless  have  shuddered  at  the  idea  of  accepting  the 
hospitaHty  of  this  *' infamous  seat  of  abomination"; 
and  the  fact  that  they  condescend  to  submit  to  the 
rules  of  Buddhist  vegetarianism  during  their  stay  on 
the  island  is  a  most  welcome  indication  that  they  were 
anxious  to  abstain  from  riding  rough-shod — as  many 
of  their  predecessors  were  wont  to  do — over  the  re- 
ligious prejudices  of  their  rivals.  But  what  are  we  to 
say  about  the  rest  of  this  paragraph?  We  may  be 
be  pardoned,  says  the  Christian  missionary  for  looking 
upon  this  as  a  happy  augury  oj  the  coming  conquest  of 
Buddhism  by  Christianity  in  China.  Perhaps  so.  The 
Christians  were  enjoying  the  hospitaHty  of  the  Bud- 
dhists ;  for  twelve  consecutive  days  they  were  shown  an 
example  of  courtesy  and  tolerance  the  like  of  which 
would  be  shown  to  Buddhists  in  no  country  in  the 
Western  hemisphere.  In  their  account  of  their  visit 
to  the  island  they  admit  that  ''it  is  remarkable  that 
no  difficulty  was  experienced  in  arranging  for  the 
accommodation  of  the  Christian  workers,"  yet  they 
utter  no  word  of  gratitude  or  of  friendly  appreciation. 
It  is  merely  * '  remarkable."  The  paragraph  closes  with 
an  expression  of  hope  that  these  temples,  in  which 
Christians  were  the  guests  of  Buddhists,  will  some  day 
become  centres  of  Christian  worship.  Would  it  not 
have  been  courteous,  in  the  circumstances,  to  have 
abstained  from  the  public  expression  of  this  pious 
hope?  I,  too,  have  visited  the  fairyland  of  Poo  too 
and  have  been  for  many  days  the  guest  of  the 
Buddhist  monks.  I  know  the  place  well,  and  love  it. 
It  is  neither  as  a  Buddhist  nor  as  a  Christian  that  I 
venture  to  utter  this  prophecy,  that  if  Pootoo  ever 
passes  under  the  control  of  Christian  missionaries,  that 
little  fairyland — that  "precious  stone  set  in  the  silver 


8o  Religious  Tolerance  in  China 

sea** — will  become  a  sadder,  a  gloomier,  a  less  beautiful 
place  than  it  is  to-day,  when  its  gleaming  temples  still 
reflect,  however  faintly,  something  of  the  glory  of  the 
Light  of  Asia. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MONASTICISM  IN  CHINA,  CHRISTIAN  INTOLERANCE,  AND 
THE  CONVERSION  OF  ABORIGINES 

WE  have  seen  that  the  doctrines  of  love  and  good- 
will inculcated  by  the  foiinder  of  their  religion 
do  not  prevent  Christian  missionaries  from  speaking 
harshly  and  discourteously  of  the  priests  of  an  alien 
creed.  The  fact  that  a  missionary  party  was  wilHng 
to  dwell  for  twelve  days  side  by  side  with  Buddhist 
monks  in  an  *' infamous  seat  of  abomination"  such  as 
Pootoo  might  be  an  indication  that  the  old  intolerance 
was  a  thing  of  the  past.  But  it  would  be  premature 
to  hope  that  such  is  the  case.  There  lies  open  before 
me  a  missionary  publication^  in  which  the  question  of 
the  evangelisation  of  the  heathen  is  dealt  with  in  much 
the  same  way  as  it  was  dealt  with  sixty  years  ago.  The 
frontispiece  consists  of  the  portrait  of  a  Buddhist  monk, 
and  on  the  opposite  page,  printed  in  scarlet  type, 
occur  these  explanatory  words:  *^ These  Buddhist 
priests  are  mostly  illiterate  men.  Some  are  even 
criminals;  others  have  been  dedicated  to  the  temples 
from  childhood.  Only  a  very  few  have  any  intelligent 
ideas  of  the  Buddhist  reHgion."  The  portrait  of  the 
monk  is  evidently  a  photograph.  It  is  true  that  the 
crimson  words  do  not  assert  of  this  particular  monk 
that  he  was  a  scoimdrel,  but  he  is  made  to  serve  as  the 
representative  of  a  class  of  whom  the  majority  are 

*  Heathenism  under  the  Searchlight,  by  William  Remf  ry  Hunt  (London; 
Morgan  &  Scott,  1908). 

6  81 


82  Monasticism  in  China 

illiterate,  and  some  are  criminals.  Was  it  a  Christian 
act,  or,  if  not  tinchristian,  was  it  chivalrous,  to  ask  a 
Buddhist  monk  to  sit  for  his  photograph,  and  then  to 
use  the  photograph  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the 
crimson  inscription?  As  to  the  morals  of  Buddhist 
monks  in  general,  I  have  no  wish  to  enter  into  the 
wearisome  discussion  of  a  question  that  Christian 
missionaries  have  long  ago  settled  to  their  own  satis- 
faction, but  perhaps  I  may  be  privileged  to  make  a 
few  remarks  on  a  topic  which  to  myself  is  one  of 
considerable  personal  interest. 

Monasticism,  in  both  Europe  and  Asia,  for  ages 
past  has  been  found  congenial  to  the  natures  of  a 
certain  exceptional  type  of  men,  often  highly  gifted 
and  spiritually  minded,  to  whom  ordinary  mundane 
excitements  give  little  or  no  pleasure,  and  to  whom 
solitude  and  peace,  combined  with  ample  opportunities 
for  a  quiet  student's  life  amid  attractive  surroundings, 
constitute  the  greatest  earthly  happiness.  For  the 
sake  of  these  men  it  is  possible  that  the  monastic  in- 
stitution, in  some  shape  or  other,  will  always  continue 
to  exist,  though  not  necessarily  in  connection  with 
any  form  of  ecclesiasticism.  But  this  mode  of  Hfe  is 
peculiarly  Hable — no  matter  what  the  religion  may  be 
with  which  it  is  associated — to  be  corrupted  and  de- 
graded by  the  evil  influence  and  example  of  men  who, 
while  still  keenly  alive  to  all  the  seductive  pleasures 
of  the  world,  have  for  selfish  and  unworthy  reasons 
adopted  the  outward  forms  of  the  monastic  life.  ''The 
most  saintly  professions,"  as  Froude  says,  ''are  not 
safe  from  the  grossest  corruption,  and  the  more  am- 
bitious the  pretensions  to  piety,  the  more  austere  is 
the  vengeance  on  the  neglect  of  it."'     Every  one  has 

»  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects,  vol.  iii.,  p.  129  (Longmans,  Green, 
&  Co.,  1891). 


Monasticism  in  China  83 

heard  of  the  state  of  moral  squalor  into  which  many  of 
the  Christian  monasteries  had  fallen  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation.  Even  the  conventual  life  of  Spain  and 
Italy  of  the  present  age  "is  regarded,"  says  Froude, 
"with  the  same  hatred  with  which  it  was  abhorred  by 
our  fathers ;  it  denotes  nothing  but  sensuality,  ignorance, 
and  sin . "  ^  Whether  the  B uddhist  monasteries  in  China 
have  ever  sunk  to  the  level  of  some  of  the  monkish 
institutions  of  Europe  a  few  centuries  ago,  or  of  Spain 
and  Italy  a  generation  ago,  is  a  doubtful  question 
which  I  should  be  inclined  to  answer  in  the  negative.^ 
I  have  seen  the  insides  of  many  of  the  best-known 
monastic  institutions  in  China,  and  the  conclusion  I 
have  come  to  is  that  in  the  great  fraternities  to  be  found 
in  large  cities  there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  corruption, 
idleness,  and  vice,  but  that  in  most  of  the  lonely  hill 
and  island  monasteries,  the  sites  of  which  were  chosen 
ages  ago  on  account  of  their  romantic  scenery  and  their 
suitability  for  the  contemplative  life,  the  conduct  of 
the  great  majority  of  the  inmates  is  not  open  to  much 
serious  moral  criticism,  while  that  of  a  select  few  would 
compare  not  unfavourably  with  that  of  any  body  of 
celibates  in  the  world.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
the  monks  with  whom  European  visitors  come  in 
contact  are,  almost  invariably,  the  most  secular-minded 
of  all  the  members  of  the  brotherhood  to  which  they 
belong.  There  are  but  few  Western  travellers  who 
have  had  any  opportunity  of  judging  of  Chinese  mon- 

^  Op.  ciL,  vol.  iii.,  p.  7. 

'  I  am  referring  to  what  may  be  described  as  Chinese  Buddhism 
proper,  not  to  the  hideous  travesty  of  Buddhism  known  as  Lamaism. 
The  great  monasteries  of  Central  and  Southern  China  have  no  connec- 
tion whatever  with  the  lamaseries  of  Tibet,  Mongolia,  and  a  small 
portion  of  Northern  China,  and  they  owe  no  spiritual  or  other  allegiance 
to  the  Grand  Lama.  Of  Lamaism  I  do  not  profess  to  have  a  good  word 
to  say,  and  the  sooner  it  becomes  extinct  the  better  for  all  concerned. 


84  Monasticism  in  China 

asticism  from  the  conduct  and  character  of  its  brightest 
ornaments.  With  regard  to  the  charge  brought  against 
ordinary  Chinese  Buddhist  monks — even  those  of  the 
great  monasteries  of  Chehkiang  and  the  neighbouring 
provinces — that  they  often  show  a  contemptible  ignor- 
ance of  the  Buddhist  religion,  its  history  and  scriptures, 
it  should  be  remembered  that  very  many  of  the  best 
and  most  intelligent  of  the  Buddhist  monks  in  China 
have  been  attracted  to  the  monasteries  not  through 
any  special  devotion  to  the  Buddhist  faith  as  such,  but 
through  a  hankering  after  the  contemplative  life  or  the 
fascination  of  the  monastic  ideal.  It  is  beyond  question 
that  a  similar  observation  might  be  made  of  many  of 
the  ablest  and  most  celebrated  of  Christian  monks, 
especially  in  the  days  when  a  gentleman  was  almost 
compelled  to  choose  whether  he  would  be  a  destroyer 
of  men's  bodies  or  a  savioiu*  of  men's  souls — whether, 
in  other  words,  he  would  set  before  himself  the  ideal 
of  a  swashbuckler  or  that  of  a  saint.  (I  do  not  mean 
to  deny,  of  course,  that  the  ideal  of  a  Galahad  may  have 
been  higher  than  both;  it  was  certainly  less  capable 
of  realisation.)  The  average  man  of  the  world — 
Asiatic  or  European — fails  to  see  anything  alluring  in 
the  vita  religiosa  and  does  not  understand  how  any  sane 
person  can  be  sincerely  devoted  to  such  an  ideal.  But 
there  is  always,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  coimtries,  a  small 
minority  of  men  who  are  equally  unable  to  understand 
how  men  can  consecrate  their  intellects  and  moral 
energies  to  the  sordid  scramble  for  wealth  and  position, 
and  sacrifice  whatever  noble  ideals  they  may  once  have 
possessed  on  the  altars  of  social  or  political  ambition. 
Yet  who,  after  all,  is  to  take  it  upon  himself  to  decide 
whether  the  cloistered  monk  or  the  worldly  gold-winner 
is  treading  the  more  excellent  way,  or  to  constitute 
himself  arbitrator  between  the  combatants  in  that 


Monasticism  in  China  85 

never-ending  "world  war  of  dying  flesh  against  the 
life"?  Must  not  each  man,  as  the  Buddha  said,  be  a 
lamp  imto  himself? 

We  have  seen  that  one  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Gutzlaff  *s 
methods  of  propagating  his  religious  convictions  among 
the  heathen  was  to  offer  up  Christian  prayers  in  a 
Buddhist  temple,  regardless  of  any  silent  objections 
that  his  courteous  Buddhist  hosts  might  have  to  this 
proceeding.  Mr.  Gutzlaff's  conduct  was  all  the  more 
surprising  in  one  who  laid  down  the  rule  that  in  the 
propagation  of  Christianity  **  nothing  in  the  spirit  of 
love  and  meekness  must  be  left  untried  to  bring  these 
myriads  to  the  fold  of  God."'  Had  all  missionaries 
in  China  made  up  their  minds,  at  the  very  beginning, 
absolutely  to  relinquish  the  support  of  the  secular  arm 
in  their  struggle  against  heathendom,  and  to  use  only 
the  weapons  of  love  and  meekness,  Christianity  might 
possibly  have  been  a  prominent  religion  in  China  at 
this  late  day.  There  is  reason  to  fear  that  it  is  now 
too  late.  The  gtmboat  policy — the  policy  that  holds 
a  pistol  to  China's  head  and  says,  ''Admit  Christianity 
freely  into  your  Empire  or  we  fire!" — can  never  be 
forgotten  by  the  Chinese,  and  it  can  never  be  explained 
away.  Christianity  is  now,  and  perhaps  always  will 
be,  associated  in  the  Chinese  mind  with  the  political 
humiliation  of  their  country. 

I  lately  ventured  to  draw  the  attention  of  a  European 
Christian  to  Mr.  Gutzlaff's  methods,  and  was  assured 
by  him  that  missionaries  no  longer  resort  to  such  crude 
means  of  evangelisation  as  that  referred  to,  and  that 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Gutzlaff  was  merely  guilty  of  one  of  the 
unavoidable  errors  that  are  necessarily  committed 
from  time  to  time  by  all  pioneers.  *'A11  missionaries 
now  understand,"  said  my  informant,  "that  they  must 

'  China  Opened,  vol.  ii.,  p.  185. 


86  Monasticism  in  China 

be  scrupulously  careful  to  avoid  running  the  faintest 
risk  of  hurting  either  the  religious  or  the  social  preju- 
dices of  the  Chinese  people,  and  they  never  do  so 
except  by  some  unavoidable  accident."  Would  that 
this  were  true!  The  day  after  this  conversation  took 
place  I  read  the  following  passage  in  a  missionary 
journal.  It  relates  the  proceedings  of  a  missionary  at 
Pingyaohsien : 

A  short  time  since  we  paid  a  visit  to  a  famous  temple 
in  the  hills,  some  fifty  li  from  here.  In  the  temple  there  is 
a  famous  idol  which  is  credited  with  all  kinds  of  wonder- 
working powers,  and  which  is  supposed  to  look  after  the 
temporal  and  spiritual  interests  of  the  people  living  in  the 
surrounding  neighbourhood.  The  occasion  of  our  visit 
was  the  yearly  hwei  (fair).  Once  a  year  thousands  of 
people  from  the  villages  far  and  near  pay  a  visit  to  this 
shrine,  and,  in  consideration  of  performing  certain  acts  of 
worship  and  parting  with  a  few  cash,  expect  to  have  their 
interests  conserved  for  twelve  months,  until  the  next  annual 
pilgrimage,  when  the  god  is  further  propitiated.  We 
arrived  at  this  place  armed  with  a  good  supply  of  books 
and  tracts.  What  a  sight!  The  temple,  the  hill  on  which 
it  stood,  and  the  valley  below,  literally  swarmed  with 
gaily-dressed  men  and  women,  the  women,  strange  to 
say,  being  specially  in  evidence.  Buying,  selling,  feasting, 
and  playing  were  the  order  of  the  day.  Entering  the 
temple,  the  usual  sad  sight  met  our  gaze,  men  and  women 
prostrating  themselves  before  the  idol  and  parting  with 
their  hard-earned  cash,  which  lay  in  heaps  before  the  shrine, 
in  order,  as  they  supposed,  to  purchase  immunity  from 
trouble  during  the  ensuing  year.  We  commenced  preaching 
and  selling  books  in  the  temple  courtyard,  much  to  the  people's 
disgust,  who  requested  us  to  leave.  This  we  did  not,  however, 
before  we  had  sold  several  books  and  had  an  opportunity  of 
directing  their  attention  to  the  One  True  God.  Among  the 
thousands  attending  the  fair  we  sold  a  few  books  and  scat- 


Monasticism  in  China  87 

tered  hundreds  of  tracts,  but  the  people  seemed  particu- 
larly hard  and  unresponsive,  many  turning  away  with 
scorn  from  the  tracts  which  were  offered  them  freely. 
Truly,  "They  know  not,  neither  do  they  understand;  they 
walk  to  and  fro  in  darkness."* 

Probably  a  narrative  of  this  kind  conveys  entirely 
different  impressions  to  different  classes  of  readers. 
The  missionary  and  his  sympathisers  will  be  pained, 
doubtless,  by  the  dismal  news  of  the  hardness  of  the 
people's  hearts.  The  gospel  is  offered  to  them  freely, 
yet  they  reject  it  with  scorn.  Truly  these  lost  ones 
walk  to  and  fro  in  darkness !  Less  prejudiced  readers, 
it  may  be,  will  marvel  chiefly  at  the  extraordinary 
self-restraint  shown  by  a  mob  of  poor  Chinese  rustics, 
undisciplined  and  impoliced,  who,  though  they  were 
admittedly  disgusted  with  the  importunity  of  the  mis- 
sionaries in  pushing  their  way  into  a  temple  during  a 
festival  season,  nevertheless  abstained  from  the  use 
of  force  even  when  the  persistent  foreigners  refused 
to  obey  the  very  reasonable  request  that  they  should 
go  away.  Of  this  remarkable  yet  typical  instance  of 
Chinese  self-control  not  a  word  of  appreciation  appears 
in  the  narrative.  What  would  a  British  crowd  of 
'Arries  and  'Arriets  have  done  with  a  party  of  aggres- 
sive Jews  or  Mohammedans  or  Buddhists  in  similar 
circumstances?  How  would  an  American  crowd  have 
treated  a  band  of  negroes  or  Mormons  or  old-time 
Quakers  who  refused  to  leave  a  church  or  a  meeting- 
house after  they  had  been  told  that  their  presence  was 
unwelcome?  If  the  disgust  of  the  Chinese  had  on  this 
occasion  expressed  itself  in  the  form  of  hard  blows  (as 
it  very  well  might)  and  in  the  shedding  of  Christian 
blood,  there  would  have  been  a  repetition,  no  doubt,  of 

«  China's  Millions,  August,  1909,  p.  121.   (Italics  not  in  original.) 


8S  Monasticism  in  China 

the  oft-told  tale.  China  would  have  added  a  few  more 
thousands  to  her  National  Debt,  a  few  more  Chinese 
heads  would  have  rolled  in  the  dust,  another  official  or 
two  would  have  been  cashiered,  and  perhaps  a  site 
would  have  been  granted  for  the  erection  of  a  nice  new 
Christian  chapel,  in  which,  in  due  course,  hymns  of 
praise  would  be  chanted  in  honour  of  the  Christ  who 
taught  the  gospel  of  Love,  Meekness,  Good-will,  and 
Charity.  Western  ears  are  startled  and  horrified  by 
the  news  of  "A  missionary  murdered,"  "Another  bar- 
barous outrage  in  China";  but  do  the  people  of  the 
West  always  make  full  allowance  for  the  numberless 
occasions  on  which,  in  spite  of  tremendous  provocation, 
a  Chinese  crowd  has  stifled  its  fury  and  stayed  its  hand 
while  in  the  act  to  strike? 

Missionaries  are  always  faced  by  a  very  strong 
temptation  to  deny  the  existence  of  religious  toleration 
in  China,  for  unless  it  can  be  established  that  Christians 
are  persecuted  for  the  sake  of  their  religious  beliefs  as 
such,  it  is  not  easy  to  claim  the  glory  of  martyrdom  for 
those  who  have  been  killed  by  a  heathen  mob.  Hence, 
we  still  hear  from  missionaries,  now  and  again,  of 
alleged  cases  of  religious  persecution.  Several  narra- 
tives have  recently  appeared  in  missionary  journals 
with  reference  to  the  sufferings  of  certain  evangelised 
hill-tribesmen  called  Miao.  These  mountain  dwellers 
of  South-western  China  are  the  remnants  of  a  once 
powerful  race  that  has  gradually  fallen  back  before  the 
advancing  Chinese  in  much  the  same  way  that  the 
Celts  in  Britain  were  driven  to  the  northern  and  western 
mountains  by  the  invading  Saxons.  Like  the  Karenni 
in  Burma  and  numerous  low-caste  tribes  in  India,  these 
people  show  a  considerable  readiness  to  embrace 
Christianity.  As  to  the  reasons  for  this  fact,  it  may 
be  remarked  that  a  religion  which  teaches  the  equality 


Monasticism  in  China  89 

of  all  men  in  the  sight  of  God  naturally  tends  to  in- 
crease the  self-respect  of  a  race  that  is  treated  with 
contempt  by  the  rest  of  mankind;  the  people  of  such 
a  race,  moreover,  are  in  many  respects  like  trustful 
children,  and  therefore  believe  all  that  the  missionaries 
tell  them  about  the  great  happiness  and  unimaginable 
rewards  that  Christianity  will  give  them,  both  in  this 
world  and  in  the  next;  finally,  such  people  are  apt  to 
feel  genuine  gratitude  for  the  kindness  and  sympathy 
which,  contrary  to  all  their  previous  experience  of 
strangers,  they  have  received  from  the  emissaries  of  an 
alien  race.  Such  considerations  as  these  are  quite  suf- 
ficient to  explain  how  it  is  that  among  people  like  the 
Miao  a  whole  village  will  be  converted  to  Christianity 
in  very  much  less  time  than  it  takes  to  convert  a  single 
family  of  ordinary  Chinese;  though  the  missionary, 
ignoring  such  practical  explanations  as  these,  is  not 
afraid  to  assert  that  the  conversions  are  directly  due 
to  the  miraculous  intervention  of  the  Deity.  ^  I  have 
no  wish,  and  certainly  I  have  no  power,  to  disabuse  his 
mind  of  this  pious  theory,  but  I  desire  to  draw  attention 
to  the  alleged  cases  of  persecution  of  the  Christian 
Miao  by  their  heathen  neighbours  and  chieftains,  and 
to  consider  whether  reasons  cannot  be  found — even  if 

^  "The  Holy  Spirit  Himself  is  working  amongst  these  tribesmen, 
else  how  could  we  account  for  this  thirst  for  Him  ?"  So  says  a  writer 
in  China's  Millions  (April,  1909,  p.  61).  Perhaps  other  explanations 
of  the  "thirst"  might  be  found  without  going  outside  the  writings  of 
Christians  of  unexceptionable  orthodoxy.  "The  upper  castes  and 
the  educated  classes  of  Hindu  society  in  towns  and  cities, "  says  the 
Bishop  of  Madras,  "have  made  little  or  no  response  to  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel.  That  is  true.  But  at  the  other  end  of  the  social  scale, 
the  lower  castes,  the  out-castes  and  the  aboriginal  tribes  are  being 
gathered  into  the  Church  in  large  masses. "  But  the  Bishop  is  careful 
to  explain  that  "the  movement  towards  Christianity  among  these 
classes  is  not  wholly  or  even  mainly  a  spiritual  one.  To  a  very  large 
extent  it  is  social. " — Nineteenth  Century,  June,  1907,  p.  888. 


90  Monasticism  in  China 

we  rely  for  evidence  solely  on  the  missionary's  own 
account  of  the  matter — for  doubting  whether  the  per- 
secutions in  question  were  due,  as  he  believed,  to 
purely  religious  causes. 

''The  devil  is  at  his  old  work,  and  God's  dear  child- 
ren are  undergoing  tribulation  simply  because  they 
are  Christians'^  This  is  the  explicit  statement  of  a 
missionary  who  personally  went,  with  his  helpers,  to 
inquire  into  the  alleged  cases  of  persecution  and  bring 
aid  to  the  sufferers.  We  are  told  that  **by  prayer  and 
hymn-singing  and  speaking  words  of  comfort"  the 
missionary  party  **  sought  to  sustain  the  faith  and 
courage  of  these  dear,  tried  children  of  God."  The 
sufferings,  it  appears,  were  mostly  the  result  of  much 
the  same  old-fashioned  forms  of  torture  as  were  once 
employed  in  Europe  by  God-fearing  men  for  the 
purpose  of  convincing  heretics  that  their  theological 
views  were  erroneous.  One  of  the  Miao  **  described 
how  his  body  was  first  twisted  into  an  unnatural  posi- 
tion, then  bound  to  a  torturing  frame";  another  had 
to  wear  a  chain  weighing  half -a-hundredweight ;  others 
were  flogged.  Of  a  place  called  Hehluh  we  are  told 
that  ''this  village  is  divided  between  God  and  the  devil, 
and  part  of  the  persecution  comes  from  the  heathen 
Miao  falsely  accusing  the  Christians."''  As  usual  in 
missionary  chronicles,  the  false  accusers  are  necessarily 
the  heathen,  the  sufferers  necessarily  the  Christians. 
But,  unfortunately  for  the  Christian  case  in  this  par- 
ticular instance,  the  chronicler  immediately  proceeds 
to  give  an  example  of  the  kind  of  accusation  that  leads 
to  the  persecution  of  the  Christians. 

For  instance  [he  says],  a  father  and  son  were  beaten 

'  China's  Millions,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  27.     (Italics  not  in  original.) 
3  Ibid.,  p.  28. 


Monasticism  in  China  91 

and  tied  up  and  had  two  or  three  goats  taken  from  them 
for  cutting  down  trees  they  used  to  worship  in  their  heathen 
days.  These  trees  are  now  beautiful  stout  pillars  in  the 
little  chapel  on  the  hillside  overlooking  the  village.  The 
chapel  is  still  unfinished.  At  night  we  held  a  splendid 
meeting  under  a  big  walnut-tree. 

The  concluding  part  of  this  paragraph  suggests  omin- 
ous reflections  as  to  the  eventual  fate  of  the  big  walnut- 
tree.  The  chapel,  be  it  observed,  is  still  unfinished, 
and  the  other  trees  have  been  made  into  beautiful 
stout  pillars ;  surely  it  would  be  a  thousand  pities  if  the 
chapel  had  to  remain  unfinished  for  the  want  of  another 
fine  pillar  or  two!  But  the  point  to  be  chiefly  noticed 
is  that  the  trees  which  the  zealous  Christians  had  cut 
down  were  evidently  held  in  special  reverence  by  the 
people  of  the  neighbourhood.  In  all  probability  they 
were  owned  by  the  whole  village  in  common ;  for  sacred 
trees  are  seldom  or  never  the  absolute  property  of  a 
single  family.  Tree-worship,  which,  like  river-  and 
mountain-worship,  once  flourished  in  nearly  every 
part  of  the  world,  including  Europe,  still  survives  in 
various  sequestered  comers  of  China. '  The  religious 
rites  connected  with  trees  are  just  as  simple  and  harm- 
less as  the  old  Maypole  ceremonies  in  England  (indeed, 
much  simpler  and  plainer),  though  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Christian  missionary  they  doubtless  in- 
volve a  breach  of  the  second  Commandment.^     Now 

"^  It  was  Christian  missionaries  who  destroyed  tree-worship  in  Europe. 
"With  Christianity,"  says  Dr.  Tylor,  "comes  a  crusade  against  the 
holy  trees  and  groves.  Boniface  hews  down  in  the  presence  of  the 
priest  the  huge  oak  of  the  Hessian  heaven-god,  and  builds  of  the  timber 
a  chapel  to  St.  Peter."  {Primitive  Culture,  4th  ed.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  228. 
The  place  where  the  event  described  by  Dr.  Tylor  is  supposed  to  have 
happened  is  Fritzlar,  not  very  far  from  Cassel.)  The  spirit  of  Boniface, 
as  we  see,  is  still  active  among  the  Christian  missionaries  of  to-day. 

3  In  describing  alien  forms  of  religious  belief  there  is  always  a  diffi- 


92  Monasticism  in  China 


^ 


the  particular  trees  referred  to  in  the  passage  we  are 
discussing  were  no  doubt  cut  down  by  the  two  Christ- 
ians from  most  high-minded  motives,  though  with  an 
excess  of  pious  zeal.  In  their  anxiety  to  convert  to 
Christian  uses  objects  which  had  hitherto  been  associ- 
ated with  the  orgies  of  heathenism  they  unfortunately 
omitted  to  ascertain  what  their  unregenerate  neighbours 
had  to  say  in  the  matter.  The  outraged  neighbours 
therefore  proceeded  to  deal  with  their  refractory  clans- 
men in  the  method  that  has  been  sanctified  by  im- 
memorial custom  in  every  Far  Eastern  land.  They 
held  a  kind  of  informal  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the 
delinquents,  convicted  them  of  interfering  with  the 
customary  rights  of  the  villagers,  and  sentenced  them 
to  punishment.  The  timber  could  not  be  restored; 
it  had  been  made  into  pillars  for  the  chapel,  and  the 
villagers  stood  in  so  much  dread  of  the  privileged 
foreigners  that  the  idea  of  removing  them  by  force 
was  probably  rejected  at  once,  if  it  ever  entered  their 
heads.  They  therefore  contented  themselves  with 
giving  the  culprits  a  beating  and  imposing,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  fine  of  **two  or  three  goats.'*  Punishments  of 
this  kind  are  inflicted  by  the  authority  of  village  head- 
men in  thousands  of  cases  yearly  in  every  part  of  the 
Chinese  Empire,  and,  though  punishments  may  be  ex- 
cessive in  some  cases  and  unjust  in  others  (for  village 
tribunals  are  not  infallible) ,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  this  democratic  system  of  rough-and-ready  justice 
has  not  on  the  whole  worked  smoothly  and  well;  indeed, 
the  solidarity  and  permanence  of  the  village  organi- 

culty  about  nomenclature.  The  connotation  of  the  English  word 
worship  is  such  that  the  expression  "  tree- worship "  is  almost  certain 
to  give  a  false  impression  to  those  who  have  not  personally  studied 
and  come  in  contact  with  any  of  the  animistic  forms  of  belief  of  which 
this  is  an  example. 


Monasticism  in  China  93 

sations  in  China  and  her  subject  territories  afford  the 
best  proof  of  the  system's  success.  One  of  the  gravest 
difficulties  attendant  on  the  introduction  of  Christi- 
anity into  China  has  been  and  still  is  that  Christian 
converts  have  been  allowed  to  regard  themselves  as 
standing  to  some  extent  outside  the  ordinary  social 
life  of  their  clan  or  village,  as  independent  of  the 
authority  of  elders,  as  not  amenable  to  the  judgments 
of  the  clan-tribunals,  and  as  free  from  all  liability  to 
take  part  in  ceremonies  or  ancestral  usages  that  may 
by  any  ingenuity  be  described  as  ** heathen.'*  When  a 
Christian  is  sentenced,  as  his  non-Christian  neighbours 
frequently  are,  to  a  fine  or  punishment  for  some  breach 
of  clan-custom,  he  is  sure  to  make  complaints  to  his 
missionary,  who  is  more  than  likely  to  jump  forthwith 
to  the  conclusion  that  ''this  dear,  tried  child  of  God" 
is  being  persecuted  on  account  of  his  devotion  to  Christ. 
But  to  continue  the  tale  of  persecution  among  the 
Miao: 

Two  of  Mr.  Pollard's  [native]  preachers  happened  to 
pass  the  place  where  a  chieftain  .  .  .  and  his  crowd  of 
heathen  were  sacrificing  to  the  devil  and  drinking  blood- 
water.  These  two  men  were  laid  hold  of  and  compelled 
to  join  in  the  heathen  worship.  For  resisting,  they  were 
most  cruelly  beaten  and  bound  and  carried  in  front  of  the 
idol. 

The  devil- worshipping  ceremony — ^here  all  too  briefly 
referred  to — sounds  thrilling,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that 
there  are  several  European  anthropologists  who  would 
give  a  good  deal  for  the  chance  of  personally  witnessing 
a  ceremony  of  this  kind.  The  ''idol"  before  which 
the  unlucky  preacljers  were  carried  was  apparently 
an  image  of  "the  devil."  Scientific  inquirers  would 
doubtless  have  a  good  many  questions  to  ask  as  to  this 


94  Monasticism  in  China 

devil's  identity,  but  in  the  absence  of  any  information 
curiosity  must  remain  unsatisfied.^  As  to  the  cruel 
treatment  of  the  Christian  preachers,  I  searched  the 
missionary's  narrative  vainly  at  first  for  any  indication 
of  the  real  motive  of  these  devil- worshipping  and  blood- 
drinking  chieftains  in  ordering  them  to  be  beaten, 
though  I  felt  confident  that  no  tribal  or  clan  chief  or 
"laird"  in  the  empire  takes  the  smallest  interest  in 
his  people's  theological  opinions  so  long  as  they  faith- 
fully perform  the  social  and  other  duties  which  by 
ancestral  and  tribal  custom  are  binding  upon  all  mem- 
bers of  the  clan.  In  a  more  recent  account  of  the  Miao 
Christians,  however,  a  clue  to  the  real  state  of  matters 
is  unwittingly  provided  by  a  fellow-missionary  and 
companion  of  the  first  writer. 

These  lairds  [he  says — referring  to  the  customs  of  the 
No-su  and  Miao  and  their  tribal  arrangements]  are 
always  quarrelling  and  fighting  among  themselves,  and  the 
tenants  must  go  with  their  landlords  to  fight.  In  these 
fights  men  are  often  killed  and  wounded.  .  .  .  Mr.  Adam 
tells  the  converts  they  must  not  on  any  account  take  part  in 
these  fights,  and  this,  among  other  things,  antagonises  the 
lairds,'^ 

What   other   result   could   conceivably  have   been 

^  The  following  apposite  passage  is  quoted  from  the  great  theologian. 
Dr.  Adolf  Harnack.  Writing  of  the  "vile  aspersions  cast  upon  all 
Christians"  in  the  first  two  or  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  he 
remarks  that  they  arose  chiefly  "from  the  evil  tendency,  prevalent 
in  all  ages,  to  regard  adherents  of  an  alien  faith  as  persons  of  evil  life 
and  to  say  the  worst  that  can  be  said  concerning  both  them  and  their 
assemblies.  The  populace  takes  every  religion  which  differs  from  its 
own,  and  which  it  does  not  understand,  for  devil  worship. "  Thus  we  need 
not  be  surprised  to  find  Christian  missionaries  of  our  own  day  casting 
the  same  aspersions  on  the  religious  rites  of  other  races  that  eighteen 
centuries  ago  were  cast  upon  Christianity  itself. 

=*  China's  Millions,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  141.     (Italics  not  in  original.) 


Monasticism  in  China  95 

anticipated?  The  reader  must  understand  that 
these  tribes  are  in  a  stage  of  development  that  is 
very  similar  to  that  of  the  Scottish  Highlanders  up 
to  the  days  of  James  V.  or  even — to  some  extent 
— up  to  the  aboHtion  of  the  heritable  jurisdiction 
of  the  Highland  chiefs  in  1747.  "The  Chinese 
authorities,"  as  we  are  told  by  our  missionary 
chronicler,  "are  nominally  supreme,  but  for  the  most 
part  they  allow  these  lairds  to  do  as  they  like  in  their 
own  districts."  Now  large  numbers  of  the  tribesmen, 
as  we  have  seen,  are  adopting  Christianity.  Probably 
the  freedom  from  military  service,  which  their  foreign 
teachers  encourage  and  even  instruct  them  to  claim, 
is  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  valuable  privileges  that 
baptism  confers.  But  what  becomes  of  the  unhappy 
laird  who  with  three-quarters  of  a  clan  of  non-fighting 
Christians  finds  himself  involved  in  warfare  with  a 
neighbouring  laird  whose  clansmen  are  still  fighting 
heathen?  We  are  told  of  the  early  Christians  in 
Europe  that  while  refusing  to  fight  their  country's 
battles  with  secular  weapons  they  gladly  offered  to  do 
so  with  spiritual  ones  and  assured  the  Roman  Emperor 
that  they  could  make  themselves  much  more  useful 
by  praying  for  him  than  by  fighting  for  him.  Perhaps 
a  similar  plea  may  be  advanced  by  the  war- weary  Miao, 
but  their  perplexed  chieftains  may  surely  be  excused 
if  they  show  unwillingness  to  accept  the  converts' 
view  of  the  situation.  One  shudders  to  contemplate 
what  a  chieftain  of  the  Macgregor  or  the  Mackintosh 
clan  would  have  done  with  a  refractory  clansman 
who  refused  to  follow  him  to  battle  on  the  ground  that 
he  had  joined  a  foreign  religious  society  that  forbade 
warfare.  Besides,  is  it  not  rather  ungrateful  and  un- 
reasonable of  the  foreign  missionaries  to  emphasise 
the  blessings  of  peace  and  the  wickedness  of  war,  seeing 


96  Monasticism  in  China 

that  it  is  only  as  a  result  of  successful  warfare  that  they 
themselves  have  been  able  to  establish  a  religious 
citadel  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Chinese  Empire, 
and  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  in  the 
land  of  the  Miao?" 

A  Miao  laird,  if  left  to  himself,  might  doubtless 
check  any  tendency  to  insubordination  among  his 
vassals  just  as  effectively  as  a  Highland  chief  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  but  though  his  knowledge  of  politics 
may  be  slight,  he  is  necessarily  aware  that  in  defying 
a  foreign  missionary  he  runs  the  risk  of  involving  him- 
self and  his  clan  in  irretrievable  ruin.  His  position, 
therefore,  is  an  extremely  delicate  one.  Is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  that  he  rues  the  day  when  Christianity 
first  made  its  appearance  within  his  territorial  limits 
and  began  to  sap  the  allegiance  of  his  once  obedient 
clansmen?^  Is  it  surprising  that  he  regards  the  foreign 
missionary  as  a  formidable  ogre  with  whom  it  were  well 
to  avoid  coming  to  close  quarters?  In  one  of  the  mis- 
sionary narratives  already  quoted  we  read  as  follows : 

Mr.  Adam  wished  to  call  on  a  tumu  (laird)  who  was 
oppressing  some  Christians.  .  .  .  The  day  following  we 

I  In  China's  Millions  (Oct.,  1909,  p.  127)  we  are  told  of  some  Chinese 
converts  ("true  genuine  cases")  who  "need  our  prayers  and  sympathy 
as,  knowing  Jesus'  disciples  cannot  retaliate,  some  of  their  neighbours 
are  subjecting  them  to  petty  persecutions."  The  words  that  I  have 
italicised  are  of  great  significance.  The  Chinese  Government  would 
open  its  eyes  wide  with  astonishment  if  it  were  told  that  Christians  never 
"hit  back. "  China  would  be  richer  than  she  is  now  by  many  millions 
sterling  (to  express  the  matter  merely  in  terms  of  hard  cash)  if  the 
Western  Powers  had  acted  on  the  principle  that  Christians  "caxinot 
retaliate. " 

'After  this  chapter  was  written  it  was  reported  in  the  Chinese  and 
foreign  press  that  a  state  of  serious  warfare  broke  out  in  the  Miao 
country,  and  that  several  villages  of  Christian  Miao  were  totally  de- 
stroyed and  their  inhabitants  rendered  homeless.  Christian  chapels, 
with  their  beautiful  stout  pillars,  are  said  to  have  been  reduced  to  ashes. 


S 


Monasticism  in  China  97 

sent  our  things  to  Haiku,  twelve  li  away,  and  ourselves 
went  on  thirty  li  in  the  direction  of  Chaotung,  to  call  on 
the  tumu  mentioned  above.  He  was  not  at  homey  hut  in 
hiding  somewhere  for  his  misdeeds.  However,  we  saw  his 
steward  and  spoke  a  good  word  for  the  Christians,  which 
we  hope  will  have  a  good  effect,  and  went  back  to  Haiku.  ^ 

Doubtless  as  soon  as  the  coast  was  clear  the  tumu 
breathed  freely  once  more  and  crept  out  of  his  hiding- 
place. 

»  China's  Millions,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  141. 
7 


CHAPTER  VII 

REVIVALIST  METHODS  IN  CHINA 

EVERY  one  is  familiar — through  the  newspapers, 
if  not  through  personal  experience — with  those 
remarkable  religious  movements  known  as  Revivals. 
The  meetings  or  services  held  by  preachers  who  adopt 
revivalist  methods  are  usually  characterised  by  extra- 
ordinary outbursts  of  religious  fervour.  Wailings  and 
sobbings  and  confessions  of  sin,  heart-broken  appeals 
to  the  Deity  for  mercy  and  forgiveness,  triumphant 
exclamations  of  thankfulness  on  the  part  of  the  "con- 
verted" and  ''saved,"  burst  forth  at  intervals  from 
one  stricken  soul  after  another.  Nor  do  the  waves  of 
religious  emotion  immediately  sink  back  to  their 
normal  level.  We  have  heard  how  in  some  of  the 
great  centres  of  British  industry — such  as  the  mining 
districts  of  South  Wales — revival  meetings  have  re- 
sulted in  moral  awakenings  that  appear  to  have 
partially  transformed  the  character  of  a  considerable 
section  of  the  working  population.  We  hear  of  a 
temporary  desertion  of  public-houses,  an  increased 
tenderness  and  harmony  in  home  life,  a  new  and  healthy 
interest  in  literature  and  politics,  and  an  undreamt-of 
cheerfulness  and  zeal  in  the  performance  of  the  daily 
round  of  toil.  In  a  great  number  of  cases — though 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  reliable  statistics — there 
is  a  gradual  return  to  the  old  way  of  living  as  the 

98  . 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  99 

flood  of  spiritual  or  emotional  energy  slowly  subsides'; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  a  considerable 
number  of  those  who  have  passed  through  the  crisis 
of  *' conversion"  have  undergone  a  reformation  of 
their  moral  nature  that  in  some  cases  is  permanent.^ 

Many  Europeans  may  be  interested,  if  only  from  the 
psychological  point  of  view,  to  learn  that  the  Chinese 
are  by  no  means  so  phlegmatic  and  prosaic  as  to  be 
proof  against  the  influences  of  emotional  religion ;  but 
whether  revivals  among  Chinese  Christians  are  likely 
to  do  more  good  than  harm  is  a  debatable  question. 
That  they  may  do  some  good  in  certain  cases  I  have 
little  doubt;  that  they  are  also  liable  to  do  harm,  es- 
pecially in  the  case  of  children,  is,  I  believe,  no  less  true. 
The  whole  subject  deserves  to  be  fully  and  seriously 
considered,  in  all  its  bearings,  by  competent  and  well- 
educated  persons,  among  whom  revival  preachers  are 
not  always,  unfortunately,  to  be  classed. 

Full  descriptions  of  the  Chinese  and  Manchurian 
revival  of  1909  may  be  found  in  various  issues  of 
China's  Millions,  An  address  by  the  Rev.  James 
Webster  appears  in  the  June  number.  He  begins  by 
referring  to  what  I  suppose  may  be  called  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual  harmony  among  missionaries  that  is, 
apparently,  one  of  the  happy  results  of  a  successful 
revival.  He  alludes  to  the  fact  that  the  foreign  mis- 
sionaries in  Manchuria  include  Scotsmen,  Irishmen, 
and  Danes,  and  that,  dining  the  conferences  which 
they  have  held  annually  or  oftener  during  the  past 

*  "The  Congregational,  Baptist,  Welsh  Independents,  and  Cal- 
vinistic  Methodist  bodies,  in  their  yearly  handbooks  for  1910,  report 
decreases  in  membership,  due  to  the  continued  reaction  from  the  Welsh 
revival." — North  China  Daily  News,  Feb.  10,  1910. 

2  For  an  interesting  account  of  the  "conversion"  of  St.  Augustine, 
see  Harnack's  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  pp.  164  seq.  (Williams 
and  Norgate,  1901.) 


100         Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

quarter  of  a  century,  "we  have  never  had  just  what 
we  could  call  unanimity  on  any  subject  whatever." 
From  this  remark  it  appears  that  for  twenty-five  years 
these  Christian  teachers  were  in  the  habit  of  meeting 
periodically  to  discuss  how  they  might  best  carry  out 
their  work  of  evangelising  the  heathen,  yet  in  spite  of 
their  Master's  precepts  that  they  should  be  loving  and 
charitable  and  bear  one  another's  burdens,  they  never 
succeeded  in  discussing  a  single  subject  on  which  they 
were  able  to  come  to  a  harmonious  agreement !  This 
is  strange  and  significant  enough  in  itself,  and  comment 
seems  unnecessary.  Passing  this  by,  we  learn  next 
that  ''our  brother  Mr.  Goforth  came  among  us — or, 
rather,  he  was  sent  to  us,"  and  that  owing  apparently 
to  the  joint  labours  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  Mr.  Goforth 
this  unhappy  state  of  dissension  among  missionaries 
came  to  an  end,  at  least  for  the  time  being.  The 
revival  movement,  however,  did  not  affect  only  the 
missionaries.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Webster  tells  us  that  the 
total  (Protestant)  Church  membership  in  Manchuria 
at  this  time  amounted  to  about  20,000  souls.  What 
the  number  of  Roman  Catholics  might  be  is  not  stated; 
they,  indeed,  are  hardly  regarded  as  Christians  at 
all,^  some  Protestant  missionaries  even  going  so  far 
as  to  include  them  among  the  allies  of  Satan.  ="  Of 
the  20,000  Protestant  Christians  many  ''had  only 
a  very  sHght  conception,"  Mr.  Webster  admits, 
"of  what  Christianity  meant."  The  remainder  of 
his  paper  is  taken  up  with  accounts  of  the  extra- 
ordinary things  that  took  place  at  the  meetings.  To 
avoid  the  possibility   of   misrepresentation    I  quote, 

^  Some  missionaries  definitely  distinguish  between  Christianity  and 
Romanism  (see  e.  g.  F.  W.  Bailer's  Mandarin  Primer  [4th  ed.,  1900], 
p.  221;  and  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  95). 

« See  below,  p.  156. 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  loi 

here    as   elsewhere,    the  precise  words  used  by  my 
authority : 

I  felt  for  many  years  that  the  Chinese  were  so  stolid 
and  so  unresponsive  to  anything  of  the  kind,  that  they 
really  did  not  understand  what  sin  was  and  what  guilt  was; 
but  the  movement  that  came  upon  us  showed  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  could  open  men's  eyes  to  a  realisation  of  sin 
in  a  wonderful  way.  It  was  certainly  something  very 
wonderful  to  see — sometimes  as  many  as  a  thousand  men 
and  women  broken  down  utterly,  weeping  the  most  ab- 
solutely sincere  and  bitter  tears  for  sin.  There  is  a  little 
place  in  the  Mukden  pulpit  where  our  native  pastor  knelt, 
and  for  days  that  little  place  was  just  a  pool  of  water  as  he 
knelt  with  the  tears  rolling  down  his  face.  I  have  seen  that 
church  night  after  night  literally  watered  with  the  tears  of 
penitent  souls.  When  we  went  down  into  the  villages  where 
there  were  no  boards  on  the  floor,  nothing  but  just  the 
earth,  before  the  meetings  closed  those  floors  would  be 
simply  mud  floors  from  the  tears  of  those  bitterly  penitent 
souls.  ^ 

Of  a  recent  revival  in  Foochow  we  are  told  in  another 
journal  that 

hundreds  would  be  on  their  faces  before  God  at  one  time. 
Confessions,  prayers  for  forgiveness,  restitution,  tears, 
sobs,  agonising  prayer  for  friends,  songs  of  praise  or  vic- 
tory, pleading,  invitations — all  could  be  heard  at  one  time, 
but  with  all  there  was  the  utmost  order.  The  spirit  of 
prayer  was  wonderful.  One  could  not  be  in  the  church  a 
moment  and  not  be  praying  for  some  one.  Sin,  as  oiu: 
Chinese  Christians  had  never  known  it  before,  was  re- 
vealed in  those  meetings.^ 

It  will  be  noticed  that  **sin"  is  spoken  of  as  if  it 
were  a  kind  of  rich  and  rare  joy.^    The  confession  of 

'  China's  Millions,  June,   1909,  p.  84. 

="  Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East,  Dec,  1909,  p.  164. 

3  "I  have  never  heard  Chinese  Christians  giving  such  wonderful  testi- 


102  Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

sin  is,  of  course,  always  a  main  feature  of  revivals. 
Some  confessions  are  delightfully  naive.  *'One  con- 
fessed to  hatred  of  the  foreigners,  and  one  said  he  had 
called  the  young  Chinese  pastor  a  hypocrite."^  An- 
other man,  a  Chinese  B.A.,  ** confessed  to  seeking  name 
and  gain.**^  One  repentant  evil-doer  gave  the  congre- 
gation this  little  glimpse  into  his  character:  *'Up  to 
the  time  of  the  revival  I  thought  myself  the  best;  now 
I  know  I  am  the  worst  of  sinners";  while  another  con- 
fessed: *' Whenever  I  could  I  shirked  coming  to  God's 
house;  now  I  love  it."^  Reading  between  the  lines  of 
some  of  the  revival  narratives  one  may  occasionally 
find  a  hint  that  many  people  (especially  children) 
confess  their  sins  merely  because  others  are  doing  so, 
and  because  they  have  caught  the  contagion  of  emo- 
tional excitement;  and  such  young  people  are  often 
hard  put  to  it  to  think  of  anything  definite  to  confess. 
For  example,  at  a  girls'  school  "we  heard  a  great  sound 
of  weeping,  for  all  the  thirty-nine  girls  were  weeping. 
At  length  confessions  were  made,  but  much  on  the 
same  pattern,  and  it  is  hard  to  know  if  the  work  was 
deep. "  4  Some  of  the  sins  that  are  confessed  amid  much 
sobbing  and  wailing  are  such  that  one  would  have 


monies.  They  all  said  they  had  never  known  what  sin  was  before,  nor 
had  any  idea  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  power  in  their  hearts.  Elder  Cheo, 
an  old  faithful  elder,  who  had  received  a  great  blessing,  rose  and  gave  his 
testimony.  He  said  that  he  had  been  in  the  Church  since  the  begin- 
ning, but  that  he  had  never  seen  such  a  time  nor  ever  received  such  bles- 
sing; and,  turning  to  his  brother  elder,  he  said,  'I  have  heard  Elder  Ling 
making  confession  of  sins  at  this  time  that  I  am  sure  the  Courts  of  China 
could  not  make  him  confess.'  And  the  attitude  of  the  old  man  as  he 
stood  there  bubbling  over  with  joy  reminded  us  of  old  Simeon's  attitude 
and  words  after  he  had  seen  the  Child  Jesus. " — China's  Millions,  May, 
1909,  p.  74. 

»  China's  Millions,  May,  1909,  p.  178. 

2  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Oct.,  1909.,  p.  594. 

3  Ibid.y  Dec,  1909,  p.  729.  -« Ihid.,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  594. 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  103 

thought  it  hardly  worth  while  to  make  a  fuss  about 
them,  but  a  sense  of  the  infinite  wickedness  of  the 
smallest  peccadillo  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  marks  of 
the  true  convert.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Goforth,  in  one  of 
his  revivalist  addresses,  refers  to  the  grave  sins  per- 
petrated by  his  unregenerate  fellow-Canadians.  In 
Canada,  he  says,  *' dances,  cards,  and  theatres  every- 
where prevail.'*  The  Chinese  have  evidently  inherited 
the  divine  grace  that  the  Canadians  by  their  moral 
turpitude  have  forfeited,  for  Mr.  Goforth  proceeds  to 
observe  that  ''the  Spirit  of  God  in  China  speaks  right 
out  and  makes  these  men  cry  out  in  agony  because  of 
these  things,  and  they  quit  them."^  Dancing,  I  may 
say  in  passing,  is  not  exactly  what  one  might  call  a 
very  prevalent  vice  in  China;  and  if  the  Chinese  in 
the  treaty  ports  are  heard  to  "cry  out"  when  they 
behold  European  ladies  and  gentlemen  indulging  them- 
selves in  that  form  of  wickedness,  it  is  possible  that 
their  shrieks  result  rather  from  astonishment  than  from 
agony.  It  is  rather  interesting  to  learn  from  Mr. 
Goforth  that  some  of  the  penitent  Chinese  who  are 
impelled  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  confess  their  sins  at 
revivals  have  been  known  to  confess  their  neighbours' 
sins  as  well.  "Two  medical  assistants,*'  he  says, 
"nearly  pulled  each  other's  hair  off,  because  one,  in 
confessing  her  sins,  confessed  the  other  person's  sins 
too.  That  is  always  a  dangerous  thing  to  do,''^  It  is 
pleasant  to  find  that  there  is  one  matter,  at  least,  on 
which  hearty  concurrence  with  Mr.  Goforth  is  possible. 
There  is  a  point  with  regard  to  some  of  these  con- 
fessions that  is  worth  notice.  When  a  Western  or 
Chinese  onlooker  suggests  to  a  Christian  missionary 
that  his  flock  of  converts  are  not  always  men  of  good 

^  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  94. 
^  Loc.  ciL,  p.  95. 


104         Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

character,  the  missionary  usually  shows  a  great  deal  of 
irritation.  Some  missionaries,  indeed,  go  so  far  as  to 
discredit  beforehand  any  evidence  of  moral  depravity 
that  may  be  brought  against  their  converts.  It  must 
naturally  startle  them  severely,  therefore,  when  the 
converts  themselves — amoved  by  an  emotional  impulse 
— confess  to  the  very  sins  of  which  their  foreign  teachers 
were  ready  to  asseverate,  in  a  court  of  law  if  necessary, 
that  they  could  not  possibly  be  guilty. 

The  confessions  of  sin  [says  one  account],  the  crjring, 
sobbing,  and  the  extreme  agony  of  not  a  few  began  and 
continued  for  two  days.  And  what  confessions  they  made ! 
We  were  struck  with  amazement.  They  confessed  to 
murderous  intention,  adultery,  opium-eating,  stealing, 
deceiving,  lying,  pride,  hatred,  jealousy,  covetousness, 
indolence,  hypocrisy.  What  awful  revelations!  it  was 
difficult  to  believe  our  ears,  to  hear  preachers,  elders, 
Church  leaders,  and  members  making  confession  of  sins 
we  thought  they  had  given  up  long  ago. ' 

An  experience  of  thisj  kind  should  have  at  least  one 
excellent  effect:  it  should  teach  the  missionaries  that 
their  own  estimates  of  the  character  of  their  converts 
are  not  always  reUable,  and  that  the  heathen  who 
accuse  the  Christians  of  vice  or  crime  are  not,  of 
necessity,  guilty  of  malicious  slander. 

But  this  is  a  matter  of  comparatively  small  import- 
ance. Graver  questions  are  suggested  by  a  scrutiny 
of  the  accounts  given  us  of  these  recent  Chinese  re- 
vivals, and  they  are  questions  to  which  I  hope  satis- 
factory answers  may  speedily  be  forthcoming.  On 
several  occasions  the  penitents  are  stated  to  have  made 
confessions  not  merely  of  relatively  small  shortcomings, 
like  some  of  those  just  mentioned,  but  also  of  grave 

^  China's  Millions,  May,  1909,  p.  74. 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  105 

criminal  acts  for  which  the  law  exacts  heavy  punish- 
ment. A  paragraph  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goforth,  headed 
*'Soul  Agony,"  begins  with  these  words:  ''But  the  fear- 
ful agony  of  some!  They  would  fling  themselves  on 
the  platform!  One  poor  fellow  said:  *I  poisoned  my 
mother  and  my  younger  brother.'  That  was  before 
he  was  converted.  The  awful  thought  agonised  him."  ^ 
No  wonder  it  agonised  him.  The  question  is,  however, 
did  he,  having  made  his  public  confession  of  murder, 
give  himself  up  to  justice?  Or  did  his  missionary 
friends  decide  to  protect  him?  Or  was  the  matter 
simply  ignored?  On  these  points  we  are  not  en- 
lightened.'' What  is  naturally  intensely  disagreeable 
to  a  "heathen  Chinee"  who  happens  to  be  jealous  of 
his  coimtry's  honour,  is  the  thought  that  Western 
readers  may  very  reasonably  conclude  from  statements 
of  this  kind  that  murder  and  other  great  crimes  can  be 
committed  in  China  with  impunity — as  though  it  were 
only  the  light  of  Christianity  that  can  save  a  nation 
from  chronic  rapine  and  slaughter.  Chinese  magis- 
trates may  have  grave  faults,  but  they  do  not  hold 
human  life  in  contempt,  and  they  do  not,  if  they  can 
help  it,  let  murder  go  unpimished.  A  Chinese  official 
who  allowed  a  matricide  to  go  free  would  be  ruined  for 
life,  socially  and  officially.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in 
referring  to  this  particular  case  the  pious  chronicler 
is  careful  to  explain  that  the  murders  took  place  before 

^  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  95. 

2  The  only  light  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goforth  throws  on  them  atter  is  con- 
tained in  these  words:  "Sins  committed  before  conversion,  fully  con- 
fessed, and  forsaken  on  conversion,  are  under  the  Blood  and  are  forgiven. 
God  has  forgotten  them,  and  it  is  not  for  us  to  resurrect  them:  that  is 
a  thing  settled"  (Chinese  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  iii).  Thus  it  appears 
that  the  omniscient  Deity  "forgets"  things  that  are  "under  the  Blood, " 
whatever  that  remarkable  phrase  may  imply.  But  the  police  would 
not  forget  them,  either  in  Canada,  England,  or  China. 


io6         Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

the  man  became  a  Christian.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know  what  length  of  time  elapsed  between  the 
commission  of  the  crimes  and  the  conversion  to 
Christianity,  and  whether  there  was  any  causal  con- 
nection between  the  two  events.  It  is  only  necessary 
to  add  that  if  it  were  to  become  publicly  known 
that  the  mission  to  which  this  man  belonged  was 
knowingly  harbouring  a  matricide,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  estimate  the  possible  seriousness  of  the  ultimate 
consequences. 

If  this  were  a  unique  case,  one  might  suppose  that, 
amid  the  noise  of  praying  and  sobbing  that  characterise 
a  revival  meeting,  the  exact  nature  of  the  man's  con- 
fession had  been  misunderstood;  but  unfortunately 
it  is  not  unique.  We  are  told  that  at  one  place  two 
non-Christian  Chinese  soldiers,  who  had  merely  at- 
tended the  meeting  out  of  curiosity,  ^'confessed  that 
they  were  murderers."  The  same  account  goes  on  to 
say  that  "our  innocent-faced  house-boy,  whom  we 
thought  so  good,  was  not  only  an  adulterer  but  a 
murderer.  A  sobbing,  broken  man  gasped  out  that 
he  had  killed  two  men.  Yet  another  confessed  to  the 
brutal  murder  of  a  nephew."^  Elsewhere  we  are  told 
that  at  a  Mukden  meeting  there  was  present  a  pro- 
minent native  Presbyterian  Christian — a  man  of  such 
good  report  in  missionary  circles  that  he  had  been  made 
a  Church  elder. 

He  looked  splendid.  He  was  dressed  in  his  very  best, 
and  wore  a  big  gold  ring  and  a  big  gold  bracelet.  He  was 
a  very  prominent  man.  He  had  been  sent  down  to  a  young 
men's  conference  at  Shanghai.  .  .  .  Suddenly  this  elder — 

I  The  Revival  in  Manchuria,  by  the  Rev.  J.  Webster  (London:  Morgan 
and  Scott).  For  examples  of  other  confessions  to  murder,  see  The 
Chinese  Recorder,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  593;  and  China's  Millions,  March,  1909, 
p.  38. 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  107 

this  splendid-looking  man — rushed  forward  and  sprang  on 
the  platform  and  cried  out:  "Give  me  a  chance.  .  .  .  The 
Devil  has  taken  me  as  an  elder  and  tied  me  right  here  at 
the  church  door,  and  I  have  hindered  every  one  from  coming 
into  the  kingdom.  Three  times  I  tried  to  poison  my  wife. 
[She  screamed  out  in  agony.]  If  the  Lord  spares  me  I  will 
give  a  tithe  of  all  I  possess  to  Him."  He  thereupon  took 
off  his  gold  ring  and  bracelet,  and  fell  in  an  agony  to 
the  floor.  Instantly  the  whole  company — seven  or  eight 
hundred  people,  men,  women,  and  children — were  in  an 
agony.  Now  that  mighty  conviction  is  wrought  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God.    No  one  can  control  it.» 

"  A  thought  that  may  have  occurred  to  many  readers 
on  perusing  this  passage  is  that  the  Spirit  of  God, 
besides  impelling  this  splendid-looking  elder  to  make 
this  momentous  confession,  might  also  have  done 
something  to  soften  the  blow  for  his  wretched  wife. 
There  are  probably  few  women — whether  European 
or  Chinese — who  would  have  the  nerve  to  listen  un- 
moved to  a  public  confession  from  her  husband  that 
he  had  thrice  tried  to  kill  her.  The  word  ** agony'* 
appears  to  be  a  technical  term  among  revivalists,  and 
when  we  read  that  this  poor  creature  "screamed  out 
in  agony,"  the  plain  meaning  presumably  is  that  she 
went  into  hysterics.  The  chief  interest  of  the  episode, 
be  it  noticed,  is  made  to  centre  on  the  elder's  confession 
and  the  splendid  prodigality  with  which  he  surrenders 
his  ornaments.  The  plight  of  his  unhappy  wife  is 
merely  referred  to  in  parenthesis,  as  if  it  were  of  no 
particular  consequence,  and  nothing  is  said  as  to  the 
measures  adopted  to  soothe  or  console  her  after  the 
cruel  shock  caused  by  her  heartless  husband's  sudden 
access  of  pious  frankness.    Nor  are  we  told  whether 

^  China* s  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  no. 


io8  Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

the   would-be   murderer   was   allowed   to   retain   his 
position  as  a   Church  elder. 

The  last  case  of  this  kind  which  I  propose  to  cite  pre- 
sents several  f eatiures  of  unusual  interest.  It  is  reported 
in  full  by  Mr.  A.  R.  Saunders  in  the  following  words: 

A  woman  stood  up  in  the  audience  and,  with  weeping^ 
confessed  to  many  quarrels  with  her  husband — a  heathen — 
when  she  would  even  tear  his  eyes  and  face  till  blood  came. 
On  the  last  day  of  the  Mission  this  same  woman  came  to 
the  platform  and,  with  real,  deep  sorrow,  confessed  to 
adultery,  and  in  connection  with  this  confession  we  have 
the  greatest  evidence  of  God's  power  I  have  yet  seen.  Her 
husband,  a  notoriously  bad  character,  was  in  the  audience 
for  some  reason  or  other,  and  heard  her  make  this  con- 
fession. While  we  were  at  dinner  the  evangelist  came  to 
tell  me  that  the  husband  was  greatly  enraged  about  this 
confession,  and  had  gone  on  the  street  to  buy  opium  which 
he  intended  giving  to  his  wife  that  she  might  end  her  own 
life.  The  evangelist  lurged  me  to  see  the  man  on  his  return 
and  exhort  him  to  desist  from  his  evil  intention;  but  I  said 
to  him :  "  Cannot  God,  who  made  the  woman  confess  her  sin, 
protect  her  from  man's  evil  designs?  We  can  only  pray." 
We  did  pray,  and  when  I  went  out  to  the  hall  to  commence 
the  afternoon  meeting,  the  evangelist  met  me  with  the 
words:  "What  the  pastor  said  is  right,  for  there  is  nothing 
like  prayer."  He  then  told  me  that  when  the  man  was  on 
the  street,  before  he  had  bought  the  opium,  he  became 
very  troubled  about  his  own  sins,  and  returned  to  the  hall 
without  doing  what  he  had  intended.  On  his  return  he 
told  the  people  that  God  had  been  showing  him  what  a 
great  sinner  he  had  been,  and  he  would  confess  his  sins  at 
the  afternoon  meeting.  He  was  the  second  person  to  come 
to  the  platform  that  afternoon  and  confess  to  God  that  he 
had  been  a  very  great  sinner.  In  the  evening  he  was  on 
the  platform  again  and  was  more  explicit.  He  then  con- 
fessed to  ten  great  sins,  amongst  which  were  highway 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  109 

robbery,  murder,  adultery,  opium-smoking,  and  gambling, 
but  he  said  he  had  now  decided  to  trust  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  leave  his  old  life.  This  experience  of  God's 
power  filled  all  with  awe  at  the  majesty  of  the  Lord.' 

There  are  several  points  in  this  interesting  narrative 
to  which  I  should  like  to  draw  my  readers'  attention. 
It  may  be  noticed,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  woman 
was  a  Christian,  while  her  husband — ^until  his  con- 
version on  this  occasion — ^was  a  heathen.  This  in 
itself  is  a  significant  fact,  and  is  somewhat  inconsistent 
with  the  common  Western  view  that,  in  China,  women 
are  the  down-trodden  slaves  of  tyrannical  husbands. 
I  am  not  sure  that  even  the  average  English  husband 
might  not  betray  some  annoyance  on  learning  from  his 
wife  that  she  had  embraced  a  new  religion  introduced 
from  "foreign  parts."  However,  the  woman's  Christi- 
anity did  not  prevent  her,  according  to  her  own  con- 
fession, from  tearing  her  husband's  eyes  and  face  till 
the  blood  came.  Evidently  the  heathen  husband  kept 
his  temper  imder  control  to  an  extent  that  was  un- 
approachable by  the  Christian  wife.  Having  admitted 
that  she  was  a  bad-tempered  wife,  the  woman  then 
went  on  to  confess  herself  guilty  of  adultery.  There 
is  nothing  to  show  whether  the  moral  lapse  took  place 
before  or  after  she  had  become  a  Christian,  so  this 
point  need  not  be  pressed;  but  she  showed  a  reprehen- 
sible lack  of  consideration  for  her  husband's  feelings 
in  making  this  disgraceful  confession  in  pubHc.  She 
could  not  have  chosen  a  less  advantageous  moment  for 
the  fulfilment  of  her  purpose;  for  her  husband,  though 
not  a  Christian,  was  "for  some  reason  or  other"  present 
in  the  audience,  and  was  therefore  under  the  painful 
necessity  of  hearing  his  wife  make  her  public  acknow- 

*  China* s  Millions,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  125. 


no         Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

ledgment  of  frailty.  Now  I  think  I  am  not  likely  to 
be  contradicted  when  I  say  that  there  is  no  man  in  the 
world  who  would  care  to  see  his  wife  stand  up  and 
confess  before  a  crowded  audience  that  she  was  a  bad 
woman  and  he  himself  a  cuckold.  Certainly  I  can 
answer  for  my  own  countrymen's  views  on  the  matter 
when  I  declare  that  a  more  utterly  scandalous  pro- 
ceeding than  that  here  narrated  could  hardly  present 
itself  to  the  Chinese  imagination.  My  reader  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  realising  the  delicacy  of  the 
situation.  The  audience  evidently  included  a  large 
number  of  men  and  women,  many  of  whom  must  have 
been  neighbours  of  the  husband  and  wife  into  whose 
painful  domestic  secrets  we  have  been  allowed  to 
penetrate,  and  some  of  whom  (like  the  husband  him- 
self) were  non-Christians.  The  husband,  therefore, 
could  not  reasonably  hope  that  full  reports  of  his 
wife's  confession  would  not  speedily  become  the 
common  talk  of  his  social  circle.  There  are  multitudes 
of  Chinese  husbands  who  would  take  their  own  Hves 
rather  than  bear  the  **loss  of  face"  that  this  would 
entail.^  The  narrative  which  we  are  considering  does 
not  explain  whether  the  couple  were  sitting  together 
or  apart,  and  it  cannot  therefore  be  explained  why  the 
husband  did  not  forcibly  prevent  his  wife  from  bringing 
scandal  on  his  family  by  her  extraordinary  public 
declaration  of  incontinence.  Mr.  Saunders,  however, 
was  informed  by  the  evangelist  that  the  husband 
^'was   greatly   enraged   about   this  confession" — this 

^  It  is  well  known  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  Chinese  law  (or  legal- 
ised custom)  the  sanctity  of  the  matrimonial  bond  is  such  that  if  a  man 
finds  his  wife  in  the  arms  of  a  lover  he  is  practically  exonerated  from  all 
blame  if  in  hot  blood  he  immediately  slays  both  culprits.  To  acquit 
himself  of  the  guilt  of  murder  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  kill  both  wife 
and  lover,  not  one  only.  The  reasons  for  this  stipulation  are  fairly 
obvious. 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  iii 

was  hardly  to  be  wondered  at — and  "had  gone  on  the 
street  to  buy  opium"  in  order  that  his  wife  might 
commit  suicide.  In  all  probabiHty  the  distracted  man 
had  hardly  made  up  his  mind  as  to  whether  the  poison 
— presuming  the  opium  story  to  be  true — was  to  be 
administered  to  himself  or  to  his  wife.  The  passages 
that  follow  are  the  most  extraordinary  in  the  whole 
narrative.  *'The  evangelist  urged  me  to  see  the  man 
on  his  return  and  exhort  him  to  desist  from  his  evil 
intention."  There  is  something  mysterious  here.  Did 
the  evangelist  or  Mr.  Saunders  suppose  that  the  hus- 
band, having  bought  his  opium,  and  having  unac- 
countably allowed  it  to  be  generally  known  to  what 
murderous  use  he  intended  to  put  it,  would  return  to 
the  meeting  and  force  his  wife  to  consume  it  there  and 
then?  Is  it  not  more  natural  to  suppose  that  he  would 
take  it  home  and  await  his  wife's  return?  However 
this  may  be,  Mr.  Saunders  evidently  regarded  the 
course  recommended  by  the  evangelist  as  imnecessary. 
He  decHned  to  exhort  the  husband  against  committing 
murder,  and  apparently  it  did  not  occur  to  him  as  in 
any  way  desirable  that  he  should  take  active  measures 
to  ensure  the  woman's  safety;  though  all  that  was 
necessary  was  to  send  a  message  to  the  local  magistrate 
to  inform  him  that  a  murder  was  likely  to  take  place 
within  his  jurisdiction  unless  prompt  steps  were  taken 
to  prevent  it.  Missionaries  have  been  often  accused 
of  interference  with  the  administration  of  Chinese  law 
— and  the  accusation  is  not  a  groundless  one;  but  this 
was  a  case  in  which  an  intimation  to  the  yam  en  would 
not  only  have  been  permissible  but  was  an  obvious 
public  duty.  Mr.  Saunders,  however,  did  not  regard 
the  matter  in  that  light;  he  merely  pointed  out  that 
God,  who  had  made  the  woman  confess  her  adultery, 
could  also  save  her  from  the  evil  designs  of  her  husband. 


112  Revivalist  Methods  in  China 

"We  can  only  pray,"  he  said.  This  view  of  the  efficacy 
of  prayer  deserves  the  closest  attention.  If  one  were 
to  ask  Mr.  Saunders  why  he  and  his  fellow-missionaries 
come  to  China  to  convert  the  heathen,  seeing  that  the 
prayers  of  Christians  at  home  should  be  able  to  effect 
the  purpose  with  equal  success  and  much  more  econom- 
ically, one  would  be  told,  no  doubt,  that  the  divine 
power  is  exerted  through  human  agencies,  or  that  God 
has  asked  for  the  personal  help  of  his  people  and  must 
be  obeyed.  Yet  it  was  apparently  assumed — though 
we  are  not  told  on  what  groimds — that  in  the  case  we 
are  now  considering,  prayer  alone  would  do  all  that 
was  necessary.  If  Mr.  Saunders,  in  the  course  of  his 
evangelistic  wanderings,  were  to  come  across  a  robber 
hacking  a  fallen  wayfarer  to  death,  would  he  rush  to 
the  victim's  rescue  or  would  he  kneel  down  and  pray 
for  him?  Merely  to  be  asked  such  a  question  would 
seem  to  most  men  a  gross  insult,  but  in  view  of  his  atti- 
tude in  the  case  of  the  woman  whose  Hfe  was  threatened 
by  her  outraged  husband  one  cannot  be  sure  of  how 
Mr.  Saunders's  answer  would  be  framed.  As  things 
turned  out — ^whether  as  a  result  of  Mr.  Saunders's 
prayers  or  owing  to  some  less  mysterious  cause — the 
husband,  fortimately,  did  not  put  his  alleged  intention 
into  execution.  While  on  his  way  to  buy  the  opium 
he  became  much  disturbed  in  mind  about  his  own  sins, 
and  returned  to  the  prayer-meeting  to  confess  them ;  and 
on  the  evening  of  that  day  he  "confessed  to  ten  great 
sins,  amongst  which  were  highway  robbery,  murder, 
adultery,  opium-smoking,  and  gambling.*'  English  and 
American  bridge-players  will  perhaps  be  rather  shocked 
to  find  their  own  Httle  weakness  classed  among  such 
crimes  as  murder  and  highway  robbery,  and  perhaps 
it  is  just  as  well  that  five  out  of  this  bold  bad  man's 
ten  sins  are  not  mentioned  by  name;  but  what  chiefly 


Revivalist  Methods  in  China  113 

concerns  us  here  is  that  once  more  we  are  left  in  ig- 
norance as  to  whether  this  robber  and  cut-throat  gave 
himself  up  forthwith  to  the  local  authorities,  or  whether 
he  bribed  his  neighbours  to  keep  the  matter  of  the 
confession  a  dead  secret.  In  the  latter  event,  how  did 
he  arrange  matters  with  his  new  missionary  friends, 
with  whom  the  awkward  responsibility  of  harbouring 
a  murderer  would  henceforth  rest? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EMOTIONAL  RELIGION 

IT  will  be  observed  that,  according  to  the  universal 
testimony  of  revivalists,  the  peculiar  phenomena  so 
vividly  described  in  these  quotations  are  the  direct 
result  of  the  workings  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  If  one 
venture  to  suggest  any  other  explanation  of  the 
manifestations,  such  as  emotional  instability  or  some 
form  of  psychological  automatism,  one  is  of  course 
regarded  as  a  wicked  cynic  or  as  morally  corrupt. 
Those,  indeed,  who  attend  a  revival  meeting  but  are 
unable  to  work  themselves  into  the  appropriate  state 
of  "agony"  are  regarded  as  being  in  no  small  spiritual 
peril.  Referring  to  the  *' opposition"  offered  by  some 
sceptical  or  unemotional  church  members  to  the  bene- 
ficent action  of  the  Divine  Spirit  at  some  of  these 
meetings,  a  missionary  writes  thus:  ** Opposition  here 
as  at  Tsingkiangpu,  but  it  all  had  to  give  way  before 
the  mighty  power  of  God;  but  some  at  all  places  did 
resist  throughout,  and  for  these  we  tremble.  May 
God  yet  have  mercy."  ^  The  **yet"  seems  to  indicate 
a  foreboding  of  the  worst.  Sometimes,  indeed,  these 
unfortunate  sinners  receive  on  earth  a  foretaste  of  the 
punishments  presumably  reserved  for  them  in  the  here- 
after. "The  majority  of  the  students,"  says  one 
account,   "so  resisted  the  Spirit  that  at  night  some 

'A.  R.  Saunders,  in  China's  Millions,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  125. 

114 


Emotional  Religion  115 

became  unconscious  in  consequence,"  others  "were 
stretched  on  the  ground,  having  tried  to  hide  from  the 
majesty  of  the  Lord."^ 

Most  of  the  revivalists  consider  that  their  own  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomena  is  the  simplest  and  most 
natural,  and  should  therefore  be  accepted  in  preference 
to  a  merely  psychological  explanation  that  involves 
the  use  of  long  words  and  mysterious  pathological 
terms.  *'It  is  so  much  easier  to  believe,"  they  say, 
"that  it  is  all  due  to  the  Holy  Spirit.  Why  not  believe 
and  be  thankful?"  Certainly  those  who  believe  in 
the  miraculous  nature  of  the  emotional  disturbances  at 
revivals  have  made  the  Holy  Ghost  responsible  for  a 
multitude  of  quaint  happenings. 

Yesterday  we  had  a  wonderful  day,  even  in  these  days 
of  blessings.  The  meetings  lasted  altogether  between  ten 
and  eleven  hours,  and  in  the  afternoon  there  was  the  most 
powerful  manifestation  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  presence  and 
power  I  have  yet  witnessed.  The  conviction  was  so  deep 
that  the  whole  congregation  of  Christians  and  the  inquirers 
cried  out  in  very  agony  for  a  long  time.  The  noise  could 
be  heard  a  long  way  off,  and  neighbours  came  round  the 
place  to  inquire  what  had  happened.  I  had  to  leave  the 
platform  and  go  among  the  people,  or  rather,  the  school- 
boys, who  were  specially  in  agony,  to  try  to  comfort  them, 
by  quoting  promises  of  God  in  their  ears.  It  was  only  by 
shouting  in  their  ears  that  they  could  be  made  to  hear. 
The  people  and  boys  were  only  conscious  of  the  presence 
of  God,  and  the  most  abject  confessions  of  sin  were  made 
to  Him,  pleading  pitifully  for  forgiveness.  Some  women 
who  were  not  believers  became  terrified  and  rushed  out 
of  the  chapel.^ 

Similar  narratives  are  very  numerous,  and  in  every 

^  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  593. 
3  China's  Millions,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  31. 


ii6  Emotional  Religion 

case  we  are  assured  that  the  active  agent  is  none  other 
than  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  *' Belief  in  endorsement 
by  the  *  Holy  Ghost, '"  as  a  recent  writer  truly  observes, 
"is  an  old  source  of  trouble,  and  has  always  been  the 
cause  of  much  over-belief  and  excessive  assertion."^ 
When  we  inquire  into  the  circumstances  of  ''conver- 
sion" we  find  that  what  appears  to  be  the  most  essential 
condition  of  this  remarkable  experience  is  not  a  belief 
in  the  doctrines  of  Christianity — in  which,  indeed,  the 
subject  may  perhaps  take  but  a  meagre  interest — but 
an  emotional  temperament  of  a  peculiar  psychological 
order.  Prof.  William  James,  in  his  masterly  examina- 
tion of  the  whole  subject,  cites  with  approval  certain 
conclusions  arrived  at  by  Prof.  Coe,  which  are  worth 
quoting. 

If  you  should  expose  to  a  converting  influence  a  subject 
in  whom  three  factors  unite:  first,  pronounced  emotional 
sensibility;  second,  tendency  to  automatisms;  and  third, 
suggestibility  of  the  passive  type;  you  might  then  safely 
predict  the  result:  there  would  be  a  sudden  conversion,  a 
transformation  of  the  striking  kind.^ 

Now  Prof.  James  himself,  who,  as  every  one  knows, 
was  very  far  from  being  a  foe  to  religion,  freely  admits 
that  the  important  thing  about  ''conversions"  is  the 
reality  of  their  effects.  He  is  personally  inclined  to 
trace  the  phenomena  to  what  is  now  known  to  psy- 
chologists as  the  subliminal  self,  but  he  says  that 
"just  as  our  primary  wideawake  consciousness  throws 
open  our  senses  to  the  touch  of  things  material,  so  it 
is  logically  conceivable  that  if  there  be  higher  spiritual 
agencies  that  can  directly  touch  us,  the  psychological 
condition  of  their  doing  so  might  he  our  possession  of  a 

^  John  Page  Hopps,  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  Oct.,  1908,  p.  185. 
2  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience  (loth  impr.),  p.  241. 


Emotional  Religion  117 

subconscious  region  which  alone  should  yield  access 
to  them.  The  hubbub  of  the  waking  Hfe  might  close 
a  door  which  in  the  dreamy  subHminal  might  remain 
ajar  or  open."'  This  theory  may  or  may  not  be  cor- 
rect, "*  but  most  of  us  will  at  any  rate  be  inclined  to 
agree  with  Prof.  James,  that  if  the  ethical  results  of 
"conversion"  are  of  high  permanent  value  to  the 
individual  who  experiences  them  revivalism  is  pro 
tanto  justified.  *'If  the  fruits  for  life  of  the  state  of 
conversion  are  good,  we  ought  to  idealise  and  venerate 
it,  even  though  it  be  a  piece  of  natural  psychology;  if 
not,  we  ought  to  make  short  work  with  it,  no  matter 
what  supernatural  being  may  have  infused  it."  ^  There 
was  once  a  worthy  EngHshman  known  as  Billy  Bray — 
described  by  Prof.  James,  who  quotes  this  incident, 
as  "an  excellent  Httle  ilHterate  EngHsh  evangeHst" — 
whose  post-conversion  feelings  were  described  by  him- 
self thus:  "I  can't  help  praising  the  Lord.  As  I  go 
along  the  street,  I  lift  up  one  foot,  and  it  seems  to  say 
'Glory';  and  I  lift  up  the  other,  and  it  seems  to  say 
'Amen';  and  so  they  keep  up  Hke  that  all  the  time  I 
am  walking.'"*  Now  if  a  quaint  little  confession  like 
this  provokes  a  smile,  surely  it  should  not  be  a  smile 
either  of  scorn  or  of  cynicism.  If  it  really  seemed  to 
Billy  Bray  that  his  feet  were  endowed  with  the  power 
of  uttering  pious  ejaculations,  the  thought  no  doubt 
helped  to  make  him  a  happier  and  better  man.  In 
attributing  the  miracle  to  the  Holy  Ghost  he  may 
have  been  in  error,  but  if  the  beHef  was  to  him  a  real 
source  of  moral  strength  it  would  be  unfair  to  treat  it 
with    contempt.     At    any    rate,    it    was   better    that 

^  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  242. 

2  Prof.  Coe  is  one  of  those  who  adversely  criticises  it.    See  The  Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1909,  p.  346. 

3  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  237.  ^Ibid.,  p.  256. 


ii8  Emotional  Religion 

Billy's  feet  should  teach  themselves  to  say  ''Glory" 
and  "Amen*' — however  meaningless  those  isolated 
observations  might  be — than  that  the  devil  should 
get  them  into  the  habit  of  murmuring  alternate  blas- 
phemies, perhaps  thereby  filling  Billy's  mind  with 
thoughts  of  wickedness,  and  imperilling  whatever  was 
immortal  in  Billy's  soul.  Had  he  been  an  educated 
man  he  would  perhaps  have  given  expression  to  his 
experience  in  words  nearer  to  those  of  Keble,  who  tells 
us,  in  charming  verse,  of  those 

"  Who  carry  music  in  their  heart, 
Through  dusky  lane  and  wrangling  mart  .  .  . 
Plying  their  daily  task  with  busier  feet. 
Because  their  secret  souls  a  holy  strain  repeat."' 

But  while  we  admit  the  possible  advantages  derived 
by  Billy  Bray  and  others  like  him  from  their  conversion 
experiences,  we  are  by  no  means  bound  to  give  our 
adherence  to  the  crude  theory  that  "conversion"  is, 
as  a  matter  of  literal  fact,  produced  by  the  direct  agency 
of  the  mysterious  supernatural  being  known  to  Christ- 
ians as  the  Third  Person  in  the  Trinity.  The  very 
fact  that  religious  crises  akin  to  those  produced  at 
revivals  are  not  confined  to  Christianity  may  well 
make  us  hesitate  before  we  accept  the  explanation  that 
so  completely  satisfies  revivalist  preachers.  The  Hindu 
describes  his  experience  as  a  realisation  of  oneness  with 
Brahma;  the  Buddhist  speaks  of  it  as  the  attainment 
of  Nirvana;  the  Christian  declares  that  he  is  "one  with 
Christ,"  or  that  he  is  "saved."  The  emotionalism  is 
turned  into  one  channel  or  another  in  accordance  with 
the  form  in  which  the  religious  influence  expresses 
itself. 

^Keble's  Christian  Year. 


Emotional  Religion  119 

Evangelical  Protestantism  lays  enormous  stress  on 
the  sense  of  guilt  and  sin;  no  one,  apparently,  can 
become  ''converted"  until  an  overwhelming  con- 
sciousness of  moral  depravity  has  taken  possession 
of  his  whole  nature.  *'My  emotional  nature,"  says 
one  of  Starbuck's  subjects,^  ''was  stirred  to  its  depths; 
confessions  of  depravity  and  pleading  with  God  for 
salvation  from  sin  made  me  oblivious  of  all  surround- 
ings." Roman  Catholicism,  in  practice  if  not  in 
theory,  takes  a  less  gloomy  view  of  man's  moral  nature 
than  is  countenanced  by  Calvinism,  and  the  man  who 
goes  through  the  experience  of  "conversion"  under 
Catholic  influences  will  probably  be  filled  with  real 
happiness  by  some  radiant  vision,  perhaps  of  the  glori- 
fied Virgin  herself.  "^  The  ' '  converted ' '  Catholic,  again, 
will  probably  lay  stress  on  the  ineffable  joy  that  his 
experience  has  brought  him,  and  in  this  way  his  "con- 
version" may  be  a  means  of  brightening  not  only  his 
own  life,  but  also  the  lives  of  others.  Theoretically, 
"conversion"  brings  joy  also  to  the  more  sober-minded 
Calvinistic  Protestant,  but  the  Calvinist,  we  all  know 
is  fond  of  adding  to  his  pleasures  a  pinch  of  the  salt 
of  gloom,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  he  is  generally 
too  seriously  concerned  about  the  state  of  his  neigh- 
bours' souls  to  be  much  in  the  habit  of  adding  joy  to 
their  lives.  A  certain  Nova  Scotian  evangelist,  who 
after  conversion  became  a  noted  preacher,  was  evi- 
dently one  of  those  rather  dismal-minded  persons  who 
think  that  the  Evil  One  is  never  far  away  from  scenes 
of  fun  and  jollity.  "On  Wednesday,  the  12th,"  he 
wrote  in  his  diary,  "I  preached  at  a  wedding,  and  had 
the  happiness  thereby  to  be  the  means  of  excluding 

^  Quoted  by  Prof.  W.  James  in  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 
p.  249. 

'  For  an  example  of  such  a  case  see  Prof.  W.  James,  op.  ciL,  p.  225. 


I20  Emotional  Religion 

carnal  mirth."  ^  One  wonders  whether  he  was  ever 
asked  to  preach  at  a  wedding  again.  The  man  who 
obtains  happiness  for  himself  by  chilling  the  mirth  of 
others  would  perhaps  have  conferred  a  favour  on  his 
fellow-creatures  by  remaining  unconverted,  or  at  least 
staying  away  from  all  ceremonial  gatherings  other  than 
funerals.  Many  Protestant  missionaries  deny,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is  under  divine 
guidance  at  all.  They  know,  as  a  matter  of  immediate 
personal  experience,  that  God  is  with  them,  and  as  they 
themselves  are  at  variance  with  the  Catholics  in  several 
important  matters  of  faith  they  presume  that  he 
cannot  be  on  the  side  of  Rome  also.  Yet  are  they  not 
a  little  unwise  to  accept  their  own  "immediate  know- 
ledge" as  infallible?  Absolute  "knowledge,"  as  dis- 
tinct from  mere  theory  or  belief,  is  the  possession  of 
every  mystic:  yet  mystics  differ  among  themselves  as 
to  the  content  of  their  knowledge.  Cardinal  Newman 
was  quite  confident  that  he  was  (to  use  his  own  words) 
*  *  divinely  guided ' '  through  life.  Mohammed  in  Arabia 
and  the  Bab  in  Persia — to  mention  two  non-Christian 
names  only — possessed  similar  "knowledge"  that  they 
occupied,  with  regard  to  the  Deity,  a  peculiar  position 
of  august  privilege.  What  Socrates  called  his  ' '  daimon '  * 
would  in  all  probability  have  been  called  the  Holy 
Ghost  if  he  had  lived  a  millennium  or  two  later. 

While  not  denying  that  revivalism  may  in  some  cases 
have  had  good  and  permanent  results  in  China  as  well 
as  in  Western  countries,  I  feel  compelled  to  conclude, 
on  the  whole,  that  it  would  be  well  for  my  countrymen 
if  Christian  missionaries  would  not  introduce  revivalist 
methods  into  China.  My  chief  reasons  for  this  con- 
clusion are  these:  In  the  first  place,  the  emotional 
effects  of  the  revivalist  appeal  are  not  always  conducive 

»  Prof.  W.  James,  op.  ciL,  p.  220. 


Emotional  Religion  121 

to  physical  health,  and  sometimes  there  is  produced 
a  pecuHar  state  of  nervous  instability,  unaccompanied 
by  any  improvement  in  the  moral  nature.  In  the 
second  place,  I  believe  that  the  revivalists  are  gravely 
mistaken  in  their  theory  that  the  phenomena  of  "con- 
version" are  brought  about  by  the  miraculous  action 
of  an  invisible  divine  personage,  and  I  have  the  same 
extreme  objection  to  my  countrymen  being  taught 
false  doctrines  about  the  spiritual  world  that  I  have  to 
their  being  indoctrinated  with  false  notions  about  any 
branch  of  science  or  philosophy.  Even  if  it  could  be 
shown  that  such  false  spiritual  doctrines  might  in  some 
cases  be  productive  of  great  and  permanent  moral 
benefit,  I  should  be  glad,  on  the  whole,  to  see  the 
Chinese  denying  themselves  the  chance  of  sharing  in 
those  benefits,  and  devoting  their  energies  unfalteringly 
to  the  single-minded  pursuit  of  truth.  When  a  repre- 
sentative body  of  competent  psychologists  have  thor- 
oughly investigated  the  whole  subject  of  ''conversion'* 
and  emotional  religion,  and  have  unanimously  declared 
that  the  direct  action  of  a  personal  Deity  is  clearly 
the  only  hypothesis  that  will  explain  all  the  facts,  it 
will  then  become  my  duty  to  sacrifice  my  own  pro- 
visional conclusions ;  but  I  see  no  likelihood  at  present 
that  the  sacrifice  will  ever  require  to  be  made. 

But  it  is  to  the  influence  of  revivalism  on  China's 
children  that  I  am  anxious  to  draw  special  attention. 
Adults  are,  or  should  be,  able  to  look  after  themselves : 
children,  all  the  world  over,  are  as  soft  clay  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  are  entrusted  with  their  education. 
If  my  readers  will  attentively  consider  the  following 
descriptions  of  how  Western  revivaHsts  (according  to 
their  own  accounts)  have  been  playing  on  the  emotions 
of  helpless  and  ignorant  Chinese  children,  I  think  some, 
at  least,  will  agree  with  me  that  this  part  of  my  appeal 


122  Emotional  Religion 

to  the  generosity  and  forbearance  of  the  Western  public 
who  support  the  work  of  Christian  missions  in  China 
is  not  wholly  without  justification. 

A  paragraph  headed  "Sweet  Music  in  the  Roof" 
appears  in  the  course  of  the  Rev.  J.  Webster's  address, 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted.  The  paragraph 
describes  how  during  a  revival  meeting 

thirty  or  forty  poor  girls  broke  down  on  the  platform 
in  a  terrible  state  of  weeping.  I  felt  that  really  we  ought 
to  get  them  out,  and  so  I,  with  one  or  two  others,  lifted  or 
led  those  poor  broken-hearted  girls  out  of  the  church  into 
an  adjoining  room,  where  they  were  dealt  with.  It  was 
delightful  to  hear  this  one  and  the  next  one  whispering, 
"Jesus,  Jesus,  Jesus.'*  It  was  just  like  an  old-fashioned 
inquiry  room  at  home.  But  when  I  went  into  the  church 
a  little  afterwards,  the  pastor  said  to  me:  "Mr.  Webster, 
perhaps  you  thought  you  did  right  in  taking  those  girls 
out,  but  I  do  not  think  so."  He  said:  "You  know,  a  little 
crying  will  do  them  no  harm.  They  will  come  all  right  by 
and  by."  Then  his  face  gleamed.  He  was  a  very  sane 
man.  There  was  no  excitement  about  him.  There  was 
no  hysteria  about  him — do  not  make  any  mistake — and 
what  he  said  was  this:  "When  they  were  crying  there  I 
heard  sweet  music  in  the  roof,  but  as  soon  as  you  took  them 
away  the  music  deased."  He  never  looked  more  solemn 
in  his  life,  and  I  beHeve  that  he  did  hear  music  in  the  roof 
that  I  did  not  hear,  and  that  he  and  others  saw  things 
that  I  did  not  see,  and  that  was  their  blessing.  What  I 
mean  to  say  is  this :  That  it  does  not  do  for  human  hands 
to  interfere  too  much  when  the  Holy  Spirit  is  working  in 
men's  hearts.     It  is  a  wonderful  thing.  ^ 

I  think  it  best  to  make  no  comment  on  this.  The 
effect  of  the  passage  on  my  readers  will  no  doubt  vary 
in  accordance  with  each  one's  temperament  and  mental 

»  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  85. 


Emotional  Religion  123 

attitude.  In  the  same  journal  the  Rev.  J.  Goforth 
gives  an  account  of  his  revivaHst  experiences  in  Chang- 
te-fu  at  a  missionary  establishment  which  contained 
two  schools — for  boys  and  girls  respectively.  After 
remarking  that  the  lady-principal  of  the  girls'  school 
"broke  down'*  at  a    prayer-meeting,   he   adds   that 

next  morning  her  seventy-five  girls  were  swept  as  by  a 
tempest;  they  were  in  fearful  agony  for  an  hour.  Every 
sin  that  had  been  hindering  their  lives  was  confessed — little 
thefts,  carelessness,  backbiting,  and  all  manner  of  sins  that 
had  crept  into  their  young  lives  were  confessed.  On  the 
third  day  the  head  teacher  of  the  boys*  school  was  very 
much  broken  down  on  the  platform  and  confessed  his 
failings  in  the  school.  On  the  fourth  night,  just  as  we 
came  out  of  otu  English  prayer-meeting,  we  heard  as  if 
all  the  voices  in  the  girls'  school  yard  were  going  at  once. 
Afterwards  we  heard  that  they  were  all  praying  for  the 
boys'  school.  It  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  yard.  There 
were  seventy-five  boys.  Just  at  that  very  time  the  Spirit 
of  God  was  coming  with  irresistible  conviction,  and  those 
boys  were  weeping  and  falling  down  everywhere.^ 

In  a  later  address  by  the  same  energetic  revivalist 
we  are  told  of  a  prayer-meeting  in  another  boys'  school, 
at  which 

suddenly  one  boy  got  up  and  confessed  sin  and  im- 
mediately broke  down.  Then  the  whole  school  was  moved. 
The  leader  tried  to  sing.  The  boys  paid  no  heed  to  him, 
and  after  about  an  hour  he  came  in  to  me.  I  was  pre- 
paring an  address  for  the  next  day,  on  "Quench  not  the 
Spirit."  I  went  into  the  schoolroom.  Those  boys  were  in 
agony.  Their  feet  were  going.  Their  hands  were  pounding 
the  desks;  they  were  all  trembling,  and  crying  at  the  top 
of  their  voices.     And  this  had  been  going  on  for  about  an 

'  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  93. 


124  Emotional  Religion 

hour.  I  saw  one  boy  get  up  and  go  over  to  another,  and  I 
heard  him  say:  *'  One  day  I  told  a  He  about  you.  Forgive 
me."  Another  lad  went  over  to  a  companion  and  said:  "  I 
stole  your  pencil."  Another  said :  "That  time  I  fought  with 
you  I  hated  you;  please  forgive  me."  The  boys  were  all 
confessing.  I  called  the  teachers  in.  We  attempted  to 
sing.  The  boys  paid  no  heed  whatever  to  us.  They  did 
not  seem  to  hear  us  at  all.  I  rang  the  school  bell  as  loudly 
as  I  could.  But  still  the  boys  went  on.  Then  I  walked 
over  to  a  desk  where  there  was  a  heap  of  slates  and  shook 
them.  Gradually  I  gained  the  attention  of  the  boys,  and^ 
having  done  so,  spoke  a  few  comforting  words  to  them  and 
told  them  to  go  to  bed.  But  what  a  glorious  change  there 
was  in  those  lads  the  next  day !  Twenty- three  of  them  were 
baptised  on  the  following  Sunday.  It  might  be  said: 
*  *  Surely  they  should  have  had  six  months'  probation. '  *  They 
did  not  need  it.  Forty-three  girls  and  boys  were  admitted 
into  the  Church  through  baptism  on  the  following  Sunday.  ^ 

There  are  two  points  about  this  piteous  narrative 
that  seem  to  demand  some  explanation.  In  the  first 
place,  if  Mr.  Goforth  was  under  the  sincere  belief  that 
these  children  were  all  undergoing  spiritual  treatment 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  why  did  he  presume  to  interrupt 
the  good  work  by  ringing  bells,  singing  hymns,  and 
rattling  slates?  In  the  second  place,  what  were  the 
circumstances  of  the  baptisms  that  took  place  on  the 
following  Sunday?  Were  the  boys'  parents  informed 
of  the  proposed  baptisms  before  they  took  place,  or 
was  the  approval  of  mere  heathen  parents  considered 
unnecessary? 

Later  on  we  learn,  in  connection  with  another  school, 
that 

all  those  boys  slipped  to  their  knees,  and  the  girls  like- 
wise.    They  were   weeping   and   confessing   all   over   the 

^  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  107. 


Emotional  Religion  125 

room. ;  The  doctor,  who  had  been  attending  at  the  hospital, 
and  was  returning  from  the  outside,  as  he  drew  near  the 
building,  heard  the  noise  and  thought  there  must  be  an 
express  train  coming  rapidly  from  the  south.  Then,  as  he 
came  nearer,  the  sound  seemed  like  some  mighty  wind 
blowing  from  the  north.  Not  until  he  got  right  up  to  the 
church  door  did  he  locate  the  tumult  as  inside  the  church. 
Men,  women,  and  children  were  all  melted  before  the 
Lord.^ 

One  is  inclined  to  surmise  that  perhaps  the  arrival 
of  the  doctor  was  opportunely  timed,  and  that  for  the 
next  few  hours  he  may  have  found  his  hands  full. 

In  another  missionary  journal  we  read  thus  of  a 
children's  revival  meeting  in  a  girls'  school  at  Nanking: 

It  began  among  the  smaller  girls,  without  any  prompting 
or  even  knowledge  of  the  teachers,  until  it  was  noticed  a 
few  of  the  smaller  children  were  absenting  themselves  from 
the  regular  meals,  who  [sic]  when  questioned  said:  "We 
cannot  eat.  We  must  pray."  At  first  they  were  absent 
from  but  one  meal,  but  later  it  was  quite  common  for  a 
number  to  eat  only  one  meal  a  day. 

One  vaguely  wonders  whether  it  was  supposed  to  be 
a  good  thing  for  the  health  of  growing  girls  that  they 
should  have  only  one  meal  a  day;  or  whether  it  was 
taken  for  granted  that  an  ample  spiritual  diet  fully 
compensated  for  the  lack  of  the  grosser  kinds  of  food. 
This  account  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  the  girls 

would  go  to  bed,  but  being  unable  to  sleep  would  get  up 
and  dress  and  come  into  the  meeting.  At  different  times 
during  the  night  great  power  was  manifested,  weeping  and 
conviction  for  sin,  confessions  one  to  another,  and  making 
up  of  little  quarrels.  Some  of  us  who  were  not  in  the 
meeting,  but  in  another  house,  felt  the  power  very  much, 
^  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  108. 


126  Emotional  Religion 

but  could  do  nothing  but  pray.  A  small  girl,  thirteen 
years  old,  was  the  leader,  if  we  may  speak  of  any  person 
as  leader.' 

These  poor  girls  were  supposed  to  be  capable  of 
doing  without  a  normal  night's  sleep,  just  as  they 
could  go  without  proper  food.  It  seems  not  imlikely 
that  physical  hunger  was  one  of  the  causes  that  banished 
sleep  and  produced  the  restlessness  that  their  teachers 
mistook  for  the  mysterious  promptings  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  ''power"  that  was  felt  by  persons  in 
another  house,  and  so  affected  them  that  they  ''could 
do  nothing  but  pray,**  is  interesting  as  being  sug- 
gestive of  a  kind  of  telepathy.  "These  little  child- 
ren," continues  the  narrative,  "who  regularly  eat 
three  meals  a  day  and  go  to  bed  at  6.30,  for  ten  days 
or  more  averaged  less  than  two  meals,  and  were  in 
meeting  until  midnight  or  after  without  any  perceptible 
inconvenience."  Any  temporary  or  permanent  injury 
that  was  being  done  to  the  children's  health  or  develop- 
ment would  not  necessarily  be  immediately  perceptible. 
This  pathetic  story  concludes  with  a  request  that  the 
children  of  England  and  America  will  join  with  these 
Chinese  children  in  prayer  for  the  lost:  the  "lost"  being 
explained  to  mean  "those  who  have  not  even  heard." 
Perhaps  it  would  have  been  well  for  the  physical  and 
intellectual  health  of  these  poor  supperless  and  sleepless 
children  if  they,  too,  had  never  "heard." 

Similar  stories  of  revivalism  among  Chinese  school 
children  might  be  quoted  in  large  numbers,  but  they  are 
all  of  much  the  same  character.  The  General  Director 
of  the  China  Inland  Mission  writes  thus  of  a  revival  in 
the  province  of  Anhui: 

There  has  been  a  revival  amongst  the  schoolgirls  of 
^  Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  129. 


Emotional  Religion  127 

Ningkwofu;  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  principal  feature  being 
a  deep  and  true  conviction  of  sin,  followed  by  great  peace 
and  joy  in  the  sense  of  forgiveness  and  cleansing.  Miss 
Webster  writes  that  after  one  or  two  of  the  meetings  the 
floor  of  the  room  was  literally  wet  with  tears.  ^ 

A  rather  piteous  case  of  child-conversion  is  described 
in  a  speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Orr-Ewing  at  St.  James's 
Hall,  London,  in  September,  1909: 

Not  only  were  the  old  blessed,  but  the  young  also  were 
blessed.  A  little  boy,  only  ten  years  of  age,  came  to  the 
last  series  of  meetings  which  I  attended  before  leaving 
China.  This  little  fellow,  as  far  as  we  knew,  had  heard 
the  gospel  only  for  a  month  or  two.  His  grandmother 
had  hindered  him  from  coming  to  the  chapel.  He  was  one 
of  our  neighbours  in  the  city  of  Kianfu.  His  grandmother 
was  thoroughly  opposed  to  us,  and  during  her  lifetime  he 
could  not  come.  This  little  boy  came  into  the  meeting, 
and  so  mightily  did  the  Spirit  of  God  convict  him  that  he 
just  knelt  at  the  form  and  wept  and  wept.  It  was  no 
ordinary  weeping.  He  wept  and  wept  until  my  heart  was 
burdened  for  him,  and  I  rose  and  went  beside  him  and 
quoted  a  few  words  of  Scripture  to  him.  As  I  knelt  beside 
him  there  I  noticed,  on  the  form,  two  little  pools  of  tears 
the  dear  lad  had  wept  as  he  cried  before  God  under  the 
conviction  of  sin.^ 

If  the  sins  of  a  child  of  ten  cause  him  to  weep  two 
pools  of  tears,  we  may  ruefully  speculate  as  to  the 
number  of  lakes  that  would  be  formed  by  the  tears  of  a 
sinner  of  forty.  It  is  a  relief,  after  harrowing  stories 
of  this  kind,  to  be  told  of  a  bad  little  boy  who  ap- 
parently resisted  all  efforts  at  conversion,  and  "had 
to  sit  by  himself  several  times  during  the  year."  He 
made  so  much  noise,  we  are  informed,  "that  his  howls 

*  China's  Millions,  March,  1909,  p.  37. 
» Ihid.,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  150. 


128  Emotional  Religion 

could  not  be  drowned  by  our  united  efforts  at  singing."  ^ 
Possibly  it  is  to  the  singing  that  we  are  to  look  for  an 
explanation  of  the  howling. 

A  recent  English  writer  has  remarked  with  truth  that 
young  people  ''need  protection  from  'religious*  fana- 
tics."^ Will  it  become  necessary  for  us  Chinese  to 
implore  the  Christian  West  to  help  us  to  save  our 
children  from  its  hysterical  missionaries?  The  well- 
known  Oxford  philosophical  writer,  Mr.  Henry  Sturt, 
has  uttered  wise  words  concerning  the  imdesirability 
of  dosing  children  with  religion. 

A  boy  who  manifests  ''deep  love  of  souls"  [he  says], 
or  labours  under  an  oppressive  sense  of  sin,  or  is  very  fond 
of  church-going  and  ritual,  or  **  loves  Christ,  who  died  for 
men,"  or  has  serious  thoughts  about  the  Atonement,  or 
prays  earnestly  for  the  conversion  of  the  benighted  Jews, 
cannot  be  approved  by  those  who  understand  child  char- 
acter.    Early  piety  is  quite  a  morbid  phenomenon.^ 

Probably  Mr.  Sturt 's  striking  book  is  not  likely  to 
be  found  in  many  missionary  homes,  but  the  recently 
expressed  views  of  an  able  and  sympathetic  Anglican 
clergyman  on  this  subject  are  surely  entitled  to  be 
received,  even  by  the  missionaries,  with  respectful 
attention. 

We  do  not  want  emotional  religion  for  our  boys  [says 
the  Rev.  H.  F.  Peile].  We  have  all  seen  too  much  of  the 
ready  flood  of  tears,  the  passionate  protestations  of  re- 
pentance and  amendment  so  heartfelt,  so  fleeting.  Only 
schoolmasters  fully  know,  and  this  is  not  the  place  to 
enlarge  on  it,  how  strong  and  dangerous  the  emotional 
nature  is  during  part  of  the  school  age.     It  seems  odd,  in 

'  Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  115. 

2  P.  J.  Blyth,  in  Christianity  and  Tradition,  p.  210. 

3  The  Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  pp.  247-8. 


Emotional  Religion  129 

the  light  of  popular  conceptions,  but  what  most  boys  need, 
for  a  time  at  least,  is  to  be  kept  manly,  and  wholesome, 
and  prosaic.^ 

If  even  this  testimony  is  not  sufficient  to  convince 
unbiassed  onlookers  that  religion  of  the  revivaHst  type 
is  not  necessarily  advantageous  to  the  young,  perhaps 
they  may  be  influenced  by  the  words  of  one  who  was 
once  head  master  of  one  of  the  great  public  schools  of 
England.  "Emotional  appeals  and  revivals,**  says 
this  acknowledged  authority,  "do  not  destroy  carnal 
sin  in  schools,  and  it  is  well  known  how  often  they  seem 
to  stimulate,  to  increase  immorality."^  It  will  be  well 
for  the  children  of  China — perhaps  for  the  children  of 
Europe  and  America  too — if  the  books  from  which  these 
quotations  are  taken  find  their  way  into  the  hands  of 
all  those  who  are  responsible  for  the  training  of  the 
young  and  for  the  financing  of  missionary  expeditions 
to  heathen  lands.  Revivals  will  run  the  risk  of  growing 
dangerously  unpopular  in  my  country  if  it  becomes 
generally  known  among  the  people  that  not  only  may 
they  have  a  pernicious  effect  on  the  normal  develop- 
ment of  the  moral  nature,  but  are  productive  of  avoid- 
able tmhappiness  to  children. 

^  See  Ecclesia  Discens,  by  the  Rev.  H.  F.  Peile,  M.A.  (Longmans, 
Green,  &  Co.,  1909). 

2  The  Ven.  Archdeacon  Wilson,  D.D.,  formerly  head  master  of  Clifton 
College,  quoted  by  Philip  Vivian  in  The  Churches  and  Modern  Thought 
(2nd  ed.),  p.  264. 

9 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  AND  A  PERSONAL  DEVIL 

IT  has  been  wisely  said  that  to  understand  is  to  forgive 
— tout  comprendre  c'est  tout  pardonner;  that  if  from 
the  point  of  view  of  absolute  knowledge  we  could  see 
all  crime,  all  sin,  all  blemishes  in  any  given  human 
character,  we  should  whisper  no  word  of  censure  and 
utter  no  sentence  of  condemnation,  but  feel  only  an 
unutterable  pity  for  those  who  had  been  crushed  by 
the  relentless  wheels  of  imiversal  law.  But  this  is 
not  man's  way.  Man  has  not  yet  attained  to  absolute 
knowledge,  and  man  still  censures  and  condemns.  Is 
it  God's  way?  The  Christian — writhing  in  the  meshes 
of  his  creed — is  bound  against  his  will  to  answer  "No." 
God — the  all-powerful,  the  omniscient,  the  all-good — 
sanctions  the  existence  of  evil  and  pain  and  condemns 
man  for  sins  which  his  God-given  nature  and  his  God- 
given  environment  left  him  powerless  to  avoid.  The 
devout  Christian  who  is  asked  by  his  heathen  brother 
to  explain  this  mystery  is  apt  to  wax  impatient. 

That  is  an  old  story  [he  says];  unbelievers  like  you 
have  put  the  difficulty  to  us  a  thousand  times,  and  a 
thousand  times  have  we  told  you  that  you  must  not  judge 
the  ways  of  God  from  your  lowly  human  standpoint. 
God's  ways  are  inscrutable,  but  you  may  rest  assured  that 
evil  will  in  the  long-run  turn  out  to  be  good,  or  that  it  is 
the  means  selected  by  God  to  educate  you  and  develop 

130 


The  Problem  of  Evil  131 

your  character,  or  that  it  is  your  punishment  for  your 
misuse  of  the  divine  gift  of  free-will. 

So  answers  the  Christian,  and  the  poor  heathen  turns 
away  uncomforted  and  unenlightened.  If  any  truths 
whatever  have  emerged  from  the  conflict  of  religious 
thought,  surely  this  negative  one  is  among  them — that 
Christianity,  whatever  else  it  may  have  done,  has  not 
solved  the  problem  of  evil.  ^ 

Even  a  stalwart  Christian  apologist  like  Dr.  Illing- 
worth  admits  this.  He  mentions  some  of  the  conjec- 
tures that  have  been  made  on  the  subject,  only  to  reject 
them.  To  declare  ''that  evil  is  merely  a  negation, 
without  substantive  existence;  or  that  it  is  a  necessity 
of  finite  and  relative  being;  or  yet  again  that  partial 
evil  may  be  universal  good" — does  not,  he  says,  really 
illuminate  the  problem.  Probably  its  solution,  he 
admits,  ''would  involve  the  knowledge  of  things  which 
we  could  not  at  present  comprehend."^ 

Sometimes  we  are  told  that  evil  is  a  mere  appearance, 
and  that  we  shall  know  it  to  be  a  mere  delusion  as  soon 
as  we  shall  have  arrived  at  the  proper  stage  of  spiritual 
and  moral  development.  This  view  seems  to  be  that 
taken  by  Prof.  W.  R.  Inge,  who  states  it  clearly  and 
succinctly. 

The  problem  has  been  stated  once  for  all  in  the  words 
of  Augustine:  "Either  God  is  unwilling  to  abolish  evil,  or 

^  "The  problem  of  evil  has  exercised  the  mind  of  man  from  all  time, 
and  has  never  yet  been  solved.  In  our  own  day  the  solution  by  theology 
seems  farther  off  than  ever,  now  that  the  existence  of  the  Devil  is  denied, 
while  the  law  of  prey  and  struggle  for  existence  is  admitted  to  be  the 
Creator's  own  handiwork — to  be  his  divine  plan  for  the  evolution  of  all 
living  things.  Surely  we  must  admit  the  inherent  cruelty  of  the  pro- 
cess?"—  Philip  Vivian's  The  Churches  and  Modern  Thought  (2nd  ed,), 
p.  181.  See  also  pp.  180-8  of  the  same  work;  and  Win  wood  Reade's 
Martyrdom  of  Man. 

^  Reason  and  Revelation,  p.  223  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1906). 


132  The  Problem  of  Evil 

He  is  unable:  if  He  is  unwilling,  He  is  not  good;  if  He  is 
unable,  He  is  not  omnipotent."  No  Christian  can  con- 
sent to  impale  himself  on  either  horn  of  this  dilemma. 
If  God  is  not  perfectly  good,  and  also  perfectly  powerful. 
He  is  not  God.  It  has  indeed  been  argued  lately  by  some 
Christian  thinkers,  such  as  Dr.  Rashdall,  that  God  is  not 
omnipotent.  Such  a  conclusion  does  credit  to  the  con- 
sistency of  a  philosopher  who  is  before  all  things  a  moralist; 
but  it  is  so  impossible  to  any  religious  man  who  is  not 
defending  a  thesis,  that  it  serves  only  to  illustrate  the  weak- 
ness of  the  premises  which  led  to  such  a  conclusion.  The 
only  other  alternative,  if  we  refuse  St.  Augustine's  dilemma, 
is  to  deny,  to  some  degree,  the  absolute  existence  of  evil, 
regarding  it  as  an  appearance  incidental  to  the  actualisation 
of  moral  purpose  as  vital  activity.  And  in  spite  of  the 
powerful  objections  which  have  been  brought  against  this 
view,  in  spite  of  the  real  risk  of  seeming  to  attenuate,  in 
theory,  the  maHgnant  potency  of  sin,  I  believe  that  this 
is  the  theory  which  presents  the  fewest  difficulties.' 

Yet  the  difficulties  which  it  does  present  are  very 
formidable.  For  example,  it  ignores  the  undeniable 
fact  that  whether  evil  exists  or  not  it  undoubtedly 
seems  to  exist,  and  in  this  very  seeming  we  are  faced 
by  a  monstrous  evil.^    Moreover,  if  evil  has  no  real 

^  Personal  Idealism  and  Mysticism,  pp.  183-4. 

2  This  and  allied  subjects  have  been  dealt  with  in  a  masterly  way  by 
one  of  the  most  distinguished,  as  he  is  one  of  the  most  lucid,  of  modern 
philosophical  writers.  I  refer  to  Dr.  Ellis  McTaggart,  and  especially  to 
his  remarkable  work,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  pp.  208  seg_.  (London: 
Edward  Arnold,  1906).  Explaining  why  he  regards  the  theory  of  the 
unreality  of  evil  as  untenable,  he  says:  "Supposing  that  it  could  be 
proved  that  all  that  we  think  evil  was  in  reality  good,  the  fact  would 
still  remain  that  we  think  it  evil.  This  may  be  called  a  delusion  or 
a  mistake.  But  a  delusion  or  a  mistake  is  just  as  real  as  anything 
else.  .  .  .  The  delusion  that  evil  exists,  then,  is  real.  But  then,  to 
me  at  least,  it  seems  certain  that  a  delusion  or  an  error  which  hid 
from  us  the  goodness  of  the  universe  would  itself  be  evil.  And  so 
there  would  be  real  evil  after  all, "  etc. 


The  Problem  of  Evil  133 

existence,  but  is  merely  one  of  the  shadows  cast  by 
an  unreal  world,  what — according  to  Christianity — be- 
comes of  the  damned?  Do  they  also  dissolve  into  the 
mists  of  unreality,  or  must  we  accept  the  pessimistic 
conclusion  that  the  Absolute  finds  room  in  its  capacious 
bosom  for  the  disagreeable  presence  of  an  eternal  and 
self -existent  hell?  If  so,  it  is  false  to  say  that  good  is 
destined  to  be  the  final  goal  of  ill.  In  the  existence  of 
a  permanent  hell  there  will  always  be  a  standing  proof 
of  good's  partial  defeat. 

As  regards  the  undesirable  evil  of  physical  pain,  some 
apologists  declare  that  pain  is  really  beneficent,  as  it 
warns  us  that  we  are  disregarding  the  laws  that  regulate 
physical  health  and  is  a  means  of  saving  our  lives. 
This  view  will  hardly  appear  quite  satisfactory  to  one 
who  is  in  the  grip  of  a  horrible  and  incurable  disease 
such  as  hydrophobia  or  cancer,  and  in  any  case  we  are 
still  left  to  speculate  as  to  why  no  other  method  could 
have  been  devised  by  an  omnipotent  God  than  that 
of  prodding  us  with  knives  every  time  we  wandered 
off  the  paths  that  lead  to  health.  A  recent  writer  is 
so  bold  as  to  assert  that  ''we  may  then  exclude  pain, 
as  Nature's  life-warden,  from  the  category  of  evil,"' 
but  this  statement  has  not  been  allowed  to  pass 
unchallenged. 

^  Of  course  [says  one  of  his  critics],  pain  often  prevents 
greater  evil — very  frequently  this  greater  evil  is  simply 
greater  pain,  but  not  always.  And  in  this  case  it  is  better 
to  have  the  pain  than  to  have  the  consequences  of  its 
absence.  But  this  gives  no  ground  whatever  for  asserting 
that  the  pain  in  question  is  not  evil,  although  it  may,  the 
world  being  what  it  is,  be  the  only  alternative  to  a  worse 
evil.^ 

^  Prof.  A.  T.  Ormond's  Concepts  of  Philosophy,  p.  537. 
2  Mind,  July,  1907,  p.  435. 


134  The  Problem  of  Evil 

Christian  Science  is  crude  enough  in  its  speculations, 
but  at  any  rate  it  is  not  wrong  in  pointing  out  the  im- 
possibiHty  of  pain  existing  in  a  world  ruled  by  a  God 
who  is  both  omnipotent  and  all-benevolent.  As  God 
is  loving,  say  the  Christian  Scientists  (if  I  understand 
them  aright),  he  cannot  will  us  to  suffer  pain;  and  as  he 
is  all-powerful  he  is  able  to  prevent  pain  from  coming 
into  existence.  Therefore  it  follows  that  pain  does  not 
exist,  and  as  soon  as  we  recognise  this  all  our  fancied 
pain  will  vanish.  Apart  from  the  logical  incoherence 
of  the  Christian  Science  philosophy,  it  is  plain  that 
this  theory  of  evil  still  leaves  us  with  the  old  difficulty: 
if  pain  and  evil  do  not  exist,  they  at  all  events  seem 
to  exist,  and  a  delusion  is  in  itself  an  evil. 

Perhaps  a  safer  Christian  argument  is  that  the  pain 
and  evil  of  the  world  are  "good  in  the  making" — or 
rather  that  they  constitute  a  kind  of  refiner's  fire  in 
which  the  corruption  of  mankind  is  gradually  purged 
away  so  that  the  human  soul  may  enter  free  from 
blemish  into  the  presence  of  the  Lamb.  But  it  is  an 
insult  to  an  omnipotent  God  to  suppose  that  he  is 
obliged  to  use  evil  or  painful  means  to  arrive  at  an 
ultimate  good.  If  the  doctrine  of  Christian  theism 
were  that  God,  though  a  very  powerful  being  and 
anxious  to  do  the  best  he  can  for  his  humble  creatures, 
is  not  omnipotent,  and  is  himself  obliged  to  struggle 
against  a  self -existing  evil,  then  the  position  might  be 
more  or  less  intelligible:  but  the  orthodox  theory 
assumes  God's  omnipotence.  The  Christian  will  per- 
haps assert  that  evil  or  apparent  evil  is  a  necessary 
part  of  the  "divine  plan " — but  this  is  no  solution  of  the 
difficulty.  How  can  it  be  part  of  the  divine  plan  of 
an  omnipotent  and  all-loving  Creator  who  was  abso- 
lutely unlimited  in  his  choice  of  plans?  What  may  be 
"necessary"  to  a  being  of  limited  powers  cannot  be 


The  Problem  of  Evil  135 


*  necessary  *  to  a  deity  whose  powers  are  of  infinite 
extent. 

There  seems  to  be  only  one  way  out  of  the  difficulty: 
it  is  by  adopting  one  of  the  alternatives  stated  by  St. 
Augustine  and  rejected  by  Dr.  Inge — that  God,  though 
absolutely  good,  is  not  absolutely  omnipotent.  For  all 
we  know  to  the  contrary,  the  abolition  of  evil  in  the 
world  might  involve  a  logical  contradiction,  and  it  may 
be  that  God's  power  does  not  extend  to  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  contradictories.  This  is  the  theory  eloquently 
urged  by  Mr.  Hugh  MacColl.'  The  argument  is  by 
no  means  to  be  despised,  and  possibly  it  may  contain 
an  adumbration  of  the  truth,  though  the  assimiption 
that  the  elimination  of  evil  from  the  world  would 
involve  a  logical  impossibility  is  made  solely  to  extricate 
God  from  responsibility  for  the  existence  of  evil  and  to 
enable  us  to  retain  the  other  assumption  that  he  is 
omnibenevolent.  The  two  assumptions  may  be  true 
or  they  may  be  false;  but  if  we  adopt  them  it  is  as  well 
to  remember  that  we  surrender  the  theory  of  the  abso- 
lute omnipotence  of  God.  As  McTaggart  shows,  if 
we  deny  to  God  the  power  to  reconcile  contradictions, 
we  deny  him  omnipotence.  =^    Yet  on   the  whole    it 

^  The  death  of  this  able  writer  occurred  in  December,  1909.  The 
reference  is  to  his  Man's  Origin,  Destiny,  and  Duty  (Williams  and 
Norgate,  1909).     See,  e.g.,  pp.  38  seq.,  170  seq. 

^  Referring  to  the  argument  "that  a  universe  without  evil  would  in- 
volve in  some  way  the  violation  of  such  laws  as  the  law  of  Contradiction 
or  of  Excluded  Middle,  and  that  these  laws  are  so  fundamental  that  the 
existence  of  evil  in  the  universe  is  inevitable, "  Dr.  McTaggart  goes  on  to 
show  that  "even  if  there  were  any  ground  for  believing  that  the  absence 
of  evil  from  the  universe  would  violate  such  laws  as  these,  it  is  clear  that 
a  God  who  is  bound  by  any  laws  is  not  omnipotent,  since  he  cannot 
alter  them,"  etc.  {Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  p.  217).  Dr.  Rashdall 
criticises  Dr.  McTaggart's  argument  on  the  ground  that  "to  call  God's 
inability  to  violate  the  law  of  contradiction  a  limitation  upon  omni- 
potence seems  to  be  using  words  in  a  somewhat  non-natural  sense" 
(Mind,  October,  1906,  pp.  537-8).     Yet   Dr.  McTaggart's  "tolerably 


136  The  Problem  of  Evil 

seems  that  some  such  theory  as  Mr.  MacColl's  is  less 
objectionable  than  many  others  that  have  been  sug- 
gested; though  its  nature  is  unfortimately  such  that 
it  can  never  (at  least  in  our  present  plane  of  existence) 
be  more  than  a  provisional  theory  expressly  invented 
for  the  purpose  of  exonerating  God,  in  man's  eyes, 
from  an  awkward  responsibility.  Men  prefer  to  see 
their  God  bereft  of  his  omnipotence  to  seeing  him  de- 
prived of  his  goodness. 

The  average  orthodox  Christian  accotints  for  the 
existence  of  evil  by  the  dismal  theory  of  the  existence 
of  a  personal  Devil.  This  belief,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
is  fast  decaying  amongst  educated  persons,  though  it 
still  flourishes  among  a  large  number  of  modem  mis- 
sionaries and  evangelical  Protestants,^  and,  of  course, 
among  orthodox  Roman  CathoHcs,  yet  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  theory  goes  very  far  in  the  direction  of 
providing  us  with  a  solution  of  the  problem.     The 

obvious  fact"  still  remains,  that  "if  there  is  anything  which  God  could 
not  do  if  he  wished,  he  is  not  omnipotent"  {loc.  ciL). 

I  The  following  is  the  theory  of  the  Devil  promulgated  at  Geneva  by 
M.  Thomas  in  his  Fictions  ou  Realites,  published  as  recently  as  1903: 
"En  nous  appuyant  sur  la  Parole  de  Dieu,  nous  devons  dire  que  Satan 
est  une  creature  peut-6tre  immortelle,  en  tout  cas  pas  6ternelle  comme 
Dieu;  il  n'a  pas  toujours  exists,  il  a  dia  commencer  avec  le  temps,  ce  qui 
implique  qu'il  pourra  aussi  finir  avec  lui.  Quant  a  sa  puissance,  si  elle  est 
grande,  elle  n'est  nullement  infinie ;  le  jour  ou  Dieu  voudra  la  d^truire, 
II  le  pourra  de  suite.  Dieu  lui  a  donne  un  grand  pouvoir,  un  pouvoir 
qui  parfois  nous  etonne  et  nous  fait  trembler,  II  ne  lui  a  pas  donne  le 
pouvoir  absolu.  Un  jour  viendra  oti  II  lui  dira,  comme  aux  flots  de  la 
mer:  *Tu  iras  jusqu'ici  et  tu  n' iras  pas  plus  loin!'  et  immediatement 
Satan  lui-m^me  se  verra  oblige  de  s'  incliner  devant  I'autorite  sou- 
veraine  du  Tout-Puissant."  (p.  277.)  To  Satan — "ange  dechu" — 
is  due  "la  desob^issance  d'Adam  et  d'  Eve  et  c'  est  de  lui  qu'aujourd'hui 
encore  proviendraient  ces  initiations  au  mal  que  nous  ne  connaissons 
que  trop  par  experience. "  As  to  the  reason  for  the  fall  of  Satan  (une 
chute  mysterieuse)  M.  Thomas  frankly  supports  the  Miltonic  hypothesis, 
and  supposes  that  Satan  while  in  heaven  was  seized  by  a  "vertige  des 
hauteurs, "  and  thus  fell  through  pride. 


The  Problem  of  Evil  137 

Christian  says,  in  effect,  that  God  is  omnipotent;  that 
the  Devil's  power,  though  of  course  vastly  superior 
to  that  of  man,  is  finite  in  extent,  and  is  therefore 
infinitely  inferior  to  that  of  God;  that  man  and  the 
Devil  are  at  war  with  each  other;  and  that  God  through 
his  omnipotent  power  will  infallibly  give  the  victory 
to  men  who  faithfully  serve  him  and  pray  to  him. 
This  view  of  the  situation  is  not  easily  reconciled,  how- 
ever, with  the  almost  despairing  statements  sometimes 
made  by  Christian  missionaries.  Take,  for  example, 
the  following  typical  utterance^: 

The  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  are  in  Asia  as  well  as 
in  America,  and  fighting  harder.  It  is  no  holiday  task  to 
which  we  have  set  ourselves.  We  are  engaged  in  a  gigantic 
struggle  in  which  there  are  against  us  "the  principalities, 
the  powers,  the  world  rulers  of  this  darkness."  Need  have 
we  of  patience,  of  determination,  of  "the  strength  of  his 
might,  and  the  whole  armoiur  of  God."  If  this  stupendous 
task  is  to  be  performed,  the  Church  at  home  must  adopt 
new  methods.  ...  It  is  time  for  Christendom  to  under- 
stand that  its  great  work  in  the  twentieth  century  is  to 
plan  this  movement  on  a  scale  gigantic  in  comparison  with 
anything  it  has  yet  done,  and  to  grapple  intelligently, 
generously,  and  resolutely  with  the  stupendous  task  of 
christianising  the  world.* 

One  might  really  suppose  from  these  rousing  words  that 
the  Christian  theory  was  similar  to  the  Zoroastrian, 
and  that  God  and  the  Devil  are  fighting  a  battle  against 

*  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Dec,  1909,  p.  696. 

»  One  is  tempted  to  ask,  Why  not  begin  by  christianising  Christendom, 
or  at  least  by  christianising  that  large,  influential,  and  ever-increasing 
army  of  Western  thinkers  who  have  rejected  Christianity  altogether  and 
who  believe  that  the  true  religion,  when  it  comes,  "will  differ  from  Christi- 
anity by  the  whole  breadth  of  heaven"?  (See  Sturt's  Ideal  of  a  Free 
Church,  p.  83.) 


138  The  Problem  of  Evil 

each  other  on  more  or  less  equal  terms.  Do  such 
writers  realise  what  they  mean  when  they  declare  that 
God's  power  is  infinite  and  that  of  the  Devil  finite? 
''If  we  believe  some  of  the  gravest  and  most  exphcit 
warnings  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,"  says  a  missionary 
bishop,  "there  is  an  unseen  force  working  for  evil, 
guided  with  a  will  and  skill  short  indeed — infinitely 
short,  thank  God — of  infinite,  but  to  us  as  vast  as  it 
is  subtle."  ^  But  if,  as  Christianity  holds,  the  infinitely- 
powerful  God  is  on  the  side  of  man  (or  at  least  baptised 
man)  in  his  war  against  a  Satan  whose  powers  are 
finite,  why  use  hyperboHcal  expressions  about  the 
terrors  of  the  struggle?  Perhaps  it  is  merely  with  the 
practical  object  of  stimulating  the  energies  of  slothful 
man,  who  might  be  tempted  to  relinquish  his  share  in 
the  struggle  if  he  reaHsed  that  God's  omnipotence  was 
quite  suflicient  to  bring  about  the  desired  result  with- 
out any  puny  assistance  from  himself.  But  why  not 
be  candid  and  say  so?  why  lead  the  thoughtless  to 
suppose  that  the  struggle  is  really  between  evenly- 
matched  powers  of  good  and  evil?  Very  possibly  it 
i-s,  but  such  is  not  the  orthodox  Christian  theory.  The 
duel  between  the  Devil  and  his  divine  adversary  may 
in  certain  respects  not  unfitly  be  compared  with  a  sea- 
fight  between  a  heavily-armed  Dreadnought  battle- 
ship manned  by  a  thousand  fighters  and  a  Canadian 
canoe  manned  by  an  infant  six  months  old  armed  with 
a  rattle.  **We  are  so  glad,"  writes  a  missionary,  *'to 
know  that  you  are  praying  for  us.  For  some  little 
time  past  we  have  been  suffering  a  desperate  onslaught 
of  the  powers  of  darkness,  and  the  faith  of  our  helpers, 
who  are  young  and  inexperienced,  is  being  severely 

»  Quoted  in  China's  Millions,  May,  1909,  p.  66.    The  words  are  those 
of  Bishop  Handley  Moule. 


The  Problem  of  Evil  i39 

tried."'     Surely  it  is  obvious  that  these  most  worthy 
people,  if  they  are  true  believers  in  the  doctrines  which 
they  spend  their  Hves  in  teaching,  have  either  un- 
necessarily   magnified    the   powers   of    evil   or   have 
strangely  failed  to  understand  what  is  meant  when 
God's   power  is   described  as  infinite  and   as  being 
exercised  on  man's  behalf.    Let  us  suppose  that  two 
hostile  armies  are  advancing  to  meet  one  another — 
one   consisting  of  a  milhon  men,   well  trained  and 
capably  led,  and  the  other  consisting  of  a  corporal 
and  two  privates — God.     Provided  that  God  (that  is 
to  say,  the  personal  omnipotent  deity  postulated  by 
the  Christians)  puts  forth  his  strength  on  behalf  of 
the  weaker  side,  which  we  will  assume  to  be  the  side 
of  right  and  justice,  then  it  is  unnecessary  to  ask  to 
which  of  the  two  armies  victory  will  be  given.     It  will 
not  be  a  fair  fight  at  all:  the  chances  of  the  milHon 
men  are  as  one  to  infinity.     Perhaps  the  Christian 
will  reply  that  God  works  through  normal  laws,  and 
that  as  it  would  involve  a  suspension  of  those  laws  if 
he  were  to  allow  a  milHon  men,  however  wicked,  to 
be  overthrown  by  three  men,  however  virtuous,  he 
could  not  be  expected  to  interfere  in  this  matter.     But 
why  should  this  be  regarded  as  a  more  serious  breach 
of  natural  law  than  that  involved  in  the  deliverance 
of  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego  from  the  burning 
fiery  furnace,  ^  or  in  the  preservation  of  Daniel  from  the 
lions  3— both  of  which  incidents  are  among  the   Old 
Testament  marvels  which  have  been  repeatedly^  de- 
clared by  Christian  missionaries  in  China  to  be  strictly 
and  historically  true?     Moreover,    Christians^  to-day 
who  believe  in  the  objective  efficacy  of  petitionary 
prayer  hold  strenuously  to  the  view  that  God  still 

I  China's  Millions,  March,  1910,  p.  45. 

»  Daniel  iii.,  13-27.  '  ^^^^^^  ^^^  ^^■^4- 


140  The  Problem  of  Evil 

constantly  interferes  with  the  ordinary  course  of  nature 
in  order  to  grant  the  wishes  of  the  faithful,  and  thereby 
carry  out  the  promises^  given  by  himself  during  the 
period  of  his  incarnation  on  earth.  Definitions  of 
miracles  are  various  and  often  contradictory,  but  I 
presume  that  any  event  may  be  regarded  as  a  miracle 
if  it  be  such  that  it  would  not  have  happened  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  nature  and  without  supernatural 
intervention.  But  to  say  that  there  are  degrees  of 
impossibility  in  the  performance  of  miracles  is  meaning- 
less, especially  when  the  miracle-worker  is  no  other 
than  omnipotent  God. 

The  present  position  and  ultimate  fate  of  the  Devil 
in  the  great  Scheme  presents  some  highly  interesting 
problems.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  on  the 
Christian  theory,  to  imagine  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
ever  being  allowed  to  evolve  himself  into  a  condition 
of  blessedness — ^yet  on  the  Christian's  own  showing 
does  he  not  deserve  some  gratitude  and  sympathy?^ 
The  French  soldier  in  Charles  Reade's  novel  used  to 
greet  his  friends  with  the  cheering  news  of  the  Devil's 
decease  ("Courage,  camarades,  le  diable  est  mort"), 
but  according  to  the  Christian  theory,  Satan  is  not 
to  be  allowed  either  to  die  or  to  mend  his  ways.  Ac- 
cording to  some  of  the  hymns  stmg  in  the  churches  by 
"yotmg  men  and  maidens,  old  men  and  children,"  one 
of  the  most  satisfactory  features  of  the  Last  Day's 
proceedings  is  to  be  the  spectacle  of  a  chained  Satan. 
For  example: 


« See  p.  202. 

» Christianity  holds  that  devils  cannot  be  converted,  and  therefore 
cannot  resume  their  forfeited  places  among  the  blessed,  but  Moham- 
medanism asserts  that  their  position  is  not  altogether  hopeless.  Moham- 
med himself  is  understood  to  have  converted  a  considerable  number  of 
these  unfortunate  creatures. 


The  Problem  of  Evil  141 

"Then  the  end:    Thy  Church  completed, 
All  Thy  chosen  gathered  in, 
With  their  King  in  glory  seated, 
Satan  bound,  and  banished  sin."' 

Thus  in  the  great  day  of  general  jubilation  Satan  alone 
is  to  be  caged.  Yet  surely  he  deserves  a  better  fate  at 
the  hands  of  those  who  owe  their  prosperity  more  to 
him  than  to  any  other  agency.  If,  as  the  orthodox 
Christian  now  usually  asserts,  sin  and  evil  or  tempta- 
tions to  sin  and  evil  were  necessary  to  our  spiritual 
growth,  then  without  Satan — the  arch-tempter — no 
spiritual  growth  could  have  taken  place,  God's  purposes 
would  not  have  been  fulfilled,  and  no  one  would  have 
qualified  himself  for  the  joys  of  heaven.^  Surely  Satan 
has  at  least  as  good  a  claim  as  any  one  else  to  be  hailed 
as  the  redeemer  of  mankind.  He  may  have  caused 
the  first  man  to  fall  into  sin  (though  at  present  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man  is  taught  more  falteringly 
than  of  old),  but  surely  he  has  most  splendidly  atoned 
for  that  unfortunate  episode  in  the  Garden  of  Eden 
six  thousand  years  ago  by  providing  men  with  the  means 
of  making  the  spiritual  and  moral  progress  that  fit 
them  for  eternal  bliss.  He  may  have  caused  the  fall 
of  man,  but  he  has  also  been  mainly  or  largely  instru- 
mental in  man's  recovery,  whereas  his  own  unfortunate 
fall  has  been  attended  by  no  such  happy  results.  Satan, 
apparently,  is  the  sole  creature  the  conditions  of  whose 
existence  refute  the  imiversal  validity  of  the  law  of 
evolution.     I  once  submitted  these  speculations  to  a 

'  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  362. 

2  "Moral  evil,  the  evil  called  wickedness,  is  a  necessary  Indispensable 
factor  in  the  upward  development  of  the  sentient  universe.  On  no 
other  hypothesis  can  we  reconcile  the  three  attributes  of  omnipotence, 
omniscience,  and  omnibenevolence,  which  we  ascribe  to  the  Supreme 
Being." — Hugh  MacColl's  Man's  Origin,  Destiny,  and  Duty,  p.  41. 


142  The  Problem  of  Evil 

missionary  to  whom,  by  the  way,  the  existence  of  a 
personal  devil  was  a  matter  that  admitted  of  no  dis- 
pute. He  pointed  out  that  Satan  deserved  no  credit 
for  his  share  in  the  moral  advancement  of  mankind 
because  such  advancement  came  about  by  the  will  of 
God  and  not  by  the  will  of  Satan  himself,  who  was  con- 
cerned only  in  making  things  as  unpleasant  as  possi- 
ble for  every  one.  In  that  case,  I  replied,  though  Satan 
may  hardly  deserve  our  gratitude  he  at  least  merits 
our  admiration.  The  Christian  will  admit,  presumably, 
that  Satan  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  is  fighting  Omni- 
potence. If  he  has  not  made  himself  acquainted  with 
this  fact  then  he  is  quite  unaccotmtably  and  inexcusably 
ignorant  of  a  vitally  important  subject  that  is,  by  the 
Christian  hypothesis,  open  to  the  knowledge  of  his  own 
plaything — mankind.  I  am  aware  of  no  dogma  of  the 
Church  that  obliges  the  Christian  to  believe  that 
between  God  and  man  there  are  secrets  regarding 
Satan's  future  career  with  which  Satan  himself  is 
unfamiliar.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  he  is  ex- 
cluded from  churches:  in  fact  some  pious  persons  have 
been  overheard  to  say  that  he  enters  such  buildings 
often  and  freely.  ^  Such  being  the  case,  it  is  impossible 
that  he  can  have  been  kept  in  ignorance  of  facts  relating 
to  himself  which  are  among  the  subjects  most  frequently 
discoursed  of  within  those  sacred  buildings.  The  hymn 
from  which  a  stanza  has  just  been  quoted  would  of 
itself  be  sufficient  to  make  him  gravely  suspect  that 

'  This  is  how  a  missionary  in  China — a  believer  in  Mr.  Spurgeon's 
theology — describes  an  unhappy  accident  that  befell  a  brother-mission- 
ary who  had  fallen  into  the  clutches  of  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell.  "In 
that  church,  just  a  week  before  I  visited  the  place,  there  had  been  a  big 
fight.  One  of  the  deacons  was  pitched  down  the  embankment.  But 
that  missionary  brother  did  not  see  that  the  Devil  was  inside  the  church 
eating  up  the  sheep.  Poor  fellow,  he  was  a  believer  in  the  *  New  Theo- 
logy' "  {China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  107). 


The  Problem  of  Evil  143 

however  brave  a  fight  he  might  put  up,  and  however 
long  the  mock-struggle  might  last,  his  chances  of  victory 
were  infinitely  smaller  than  would  be  those  of  an  ag- 
gressive oyster  at  war  with  an  elephant.  Now  if, 
with  no  prospects  before  him  but  those  of  eternal  defeat 
and  damnation,  Satan  is  continuing  the  war  against 
heaven  of  his  own  free  will,  he  is  either  fired  by  a 
despair  which  is  more  magnificent  than  any  hope,  or 
his  heroism  is  of  a  supreme  grandeur  unimaginable  by 
the  mind  of  man  and  inexpressible  in  human  words. 

There  is  another  Satanic  problem  with  which  our 
Chinese  minds  have  been  puzzled  and  of  which  no 
missionary  has  yet  offered  us  a  satisfactory  solution. 
Christianity  shrinks  from  admitting  that  God  dehber- 
ately  created  Satan  as  an  instrument  of  evil.  The 
popular  theory  is  that  Satan  was  once  a  sinless  angel 
in  heaven  and  fell  from  his  high  estate  through  the 
sin  of  pride.  ^  One  feels  impelled  to  ask,  firstly,  why 
God  created  a  being  who,  as  his  omniscience  must  have 
told  him,  would  bring  discredit  upon  heaven  and  misery 
upon  mankind,  and  secondly,  why  having  driven  him 
out  of  heaven  God  did  not  keep  the  dreadful  creatin-e 
closely  confined  to  the  place  prepared  for  him.  Waiving 
these  points,  we  are  still  confronted  by  the  most  serious 
of  all  objections  to  the  ingenious  hypothesis  popularised 
by  Milton  and  preached  to-day  in  China  by  many  mis- 
sionaries. The  theory  of  Satan's  moral  corruption 
and  fall  obviously  necessitates  our  tracing  the  origin 
of  evil  to  a  pre-diabolic  source.  Who  or  what  was  the 
cause  of  the  sinful  pride  that  led  to  Satan's  ruin?  It 
must  have  been  a  far  more  powerful  agency  than  Satan 
himself,  for  it  was  able  to  contaminate  the  purity  and 
sinlessness  of  God's  own  heaven,  whereas  Satan's  sphere 
of  activity  is  imderstood  to  be  restricted  to  the  air,  the 

^  See  note,  p.  136. 


144  The  Problem  of  Evil 

earth  (especially  China),  and  his  own  fiery  domicile. 
Dare  we  suggest  that  somewhere,  lurking  in  the  back- 
ground, there  must  be  a  super-devil,  and  that  Satan*s 
final  defeat  will  not  therefore  be  a  guarantee  for  the 
non-reappearance  of  evil? 

All  this  will,  of  course,  appear  to  be  foolish  trifling  in 
the  estimation  of  those  who  have  long  ago  given  up  a 
belief  in  a  personal  devil  yet  still  regard  themselves  as 
entitled  to  the  name  of  orthodox  Christians.  But  I 
must  beseech  them  to  remember  that  I  am  writing 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Chinese  ** inquirer,*'  and 
that  the  questions  and  speculations  which  I  venture  to 
put  forward  in  the  course  of  this  Appeal  are  in  every 
case  suggested  by  the  Christian  doctrines  that  are 
daily  poured  into  Chinese  ears  by  thousands  of  Christ- 
ian missionaries.  The  Christianity  that  is  taught  to 
pagans  is  not,  be  it  observed,  the  Christianity  that  is 
expounded  in  the  pulpit  of  St.  Mary's  Church  at 
Oxford,  nor  is  it  the  Christianity  of  the  City  Temple 
in  London. 


CHAPTER  X 

CHRISTIAN   DEMONOLOGY 

A  CONSIDERABLE  number  of  evangelical  mis- 
sionaries in  China  hail  from  Scandinavia;  and  as 
most  if  not  all  of  this  contingent  are  sincere  believers 
in  Satan's  personaHty  and  would  be  shocked  to  learn 
that  no  such  creature  existed,  it  will  be  interesting 
to  observe  what  effect  (if  any)  on  their  minds  and 
teachings  will  be  produced  by  certain  recent  events 
in  Sweden.  It  appears  that  a  Stockholm  newspaper 
instituted  in  1909  what  it  called  ''An  Inquiry  into  the 
Existence  of  the  Devil"  (Djdfvuls-enquete),  and  invited 
expressions  of  opinion  from  any  one  whose  views  on 
this  enticing  subject  were  deserving  of  pubHc  attention. ' 
The  articles  published  by  the  journal  in  question 
aroused  so  much  interest  that  a  meeting  was  held  at 
which  a  motion  was  carried  calHng  upon  the  Govern- 
ment ''to  aid  in  aboHshing  superstition  by  making  it 
possible  for  a  Lutheran  clergyman  to  deny  the  dogma 
of  the  Devil's  existence,  of  hell,  and  of  eternal  damna- 
tion, without  running  the  risk  of  being  ejected  from  his 
office;  and  further  asking  that  an  authoritative  Church 
meeting  should  be  called  to  decide  what  is  the  pre- 
vailing teaching  of  Christendom  on  these  points." 
Among  the  minority  that  voted  against  the  motion 

I  My  information  on  the  subject  of  this  Swedish  incident  is  entirely- 
derived  from  an  article  by  Ivor  Tuckett  in  The  Literary  Guide  (March, 
1909),  pp.  41  seg^. 

10  145 


146  Christian  Demonology 

were  seven  clergymen,  but  an  eighth  clergyman  not 
only  voted  with  the  majority,  but  openly  uttered  the 
words,  "Among  my  religious  conceptions  there  is  no 
place  for  any  idea  of  a  devil."  This  unorthodox 
utterance  on  the  part  of  a  clergyman  resulted  in  his 
being  formally  charged  with  heresy  before  the  Stock- 
holm Konsistoriimi.  It  was  pointed  out  on  behalf 
of  the  prosecution  that  ''behef  in  the  Devil's  existence 
is  one  of  the  most  fixed  articles  of  Lutheran  doctrine.'* 
How  indeed  could  it  be  otherwise,  seeing  that  Luther 
himself  was  visited  and  addressed  by  the  Devil  several 
times,  and  that  Luther  on  one  memorable  occasion  is 
said  to  have  thrown  an  ink-bottle  at  him?  However, 
the  remarkable  result  of  the  trial  was  that  although 
six  of  the  twelve  members  of  the  Konsistorium  ''had 
already  expressed  themselves  in  the  Press  definitely 
in  favour  of  the  dogma  of  the  Devil's  existence,  they 
agreed  to  a  judgment  acquitting  Pastor  Hannerz  of 
unorthodoxy  by  ten  votes  to  two."  It  must  be  ex- 
plained, however,  that  the  ten  members  by  no  means 
supported  the  accused  pastor  in  his  denial  of  the  Devil's 
existence :  it  appears  that  four  or  five  at  least  acquitted 
him  merely  on  technical  grounds.  As  for  the  two  who 
dissented  from  the  acquittal,  they  stated  that  they 
did  so  ''because  they  considered  the  doctrine  about 
the  Devil,  found  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  to  be  bound 
up  organically  and  indissolubly  with  Christian  teaching, 
and  to  be  expressed  in  the  clearest  way,  not  least  by 
Jesus  Christ  himself." 

Certainly  if  the  Konsistorium  had  wished  to  find  out- 
side support  for  the  theory  of  the  continued  existence 
and  vitality  of  Satan,  they  could  hardly  have  done 
better  than  consult  some  of  the  missionary  journals. 
We  learn  from  them  that  the  Evil  One  is  frequently 
an  uninvited  guest  at  prayer-meetings.     It  is  related 


Christian  Demonology  147 

by  some  missionaries  that  on  one  occasion  they  "  seemed 
to  realise  as  never  before  the  power  of  the  enemy.  The 
Devil  took  hold  of  one  man  and  tried  to  work  him  up 
to  a  frenzy,  but  Mr.  Goforth  checked  this.'*'  The 
spectacle  of  the  contest  between  the  Devil  and  Mr. 
Goforth  must  have  been  an  inspiring  one. 

In  this  Httle  story  we  hear  of  "the  Devil"  only. 
But  missionaries  in  China — those  at  least  of  the  class 
with  whose  teachings  and  methods  these  pages  are 
concerned — are  far  from  content  with  postulating  the 
existence  of  Satan.  They  are  also  convinced  that  the 
world — especially  the  heathen  world — swarms  with 
minor  devils,  the  chief  object  of  whose  existence  is 
the  capture  and  destruction  of  human  souls.  ^  That 
they  should  believe  in  devils  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
in  view  of  their  absolute  reliance  on  the  inerrancy  of 
the  Bible  and  the  omniscient  Godhead  of  Jesus :  and 
indeed  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  holding  such 
beHefs  as  that  of  devil-possession  they  deserve  credit 
for  more  honesty  and  consistency  than  are  shown  by 
their  more  ''advanced"  colleagues  in  reHgion,  who  by 
violent  distortions  of  language  and  far-fetched  ''re- 
conciliations" try  to  make  it  appear  that  an  adherence 
to  Christian  theology  and  an  acquiescence  in  the  dogma 
of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Bible  are  not  incom- 
patible  with   a   ivll   and   frank   acceptance   of    the 


^  China's  Millions,  March,  1909,  p.  39. 

2  The  Rev.  Justus  Doolittle  mentions  without  a  smile  and  perhaps 
with  half -belief  the  illuminating  theory  that  the  Chinese  language  was 
specially  invented  by  the  Devil  so  that  by  the  creation  of  linguistic 
difficulties  he  might  "prevent  the  prevalence  of  Christianity  in  a  country 
where  he  has  so  many  zealous  and  able  subjects"  {Social  Life  of  the 
Chinese,  p.  604).  It  is  clear  that  the  Devil  deserves  to  be  elected  to  the 
honorary  membership  of  every  Society  that  takes  an  interest  in  philology. 
The  invention  of  Esperanto  was  a  trifle  compared  with  the  Devil's  task 
in  constructing  the  language  of  China. 


148  Christian  Demonology 

results   of    modem  scientific    discovery    and  critical 
research. 

I  have  heard  educated  Europeans,  when  they  have 
been  informed  of  the  fact  that  numerous  missionaries 
in  China  honestly  believe  in  the  reality  of  demon-pos- 
session, express  amazement  and  incredulity.  That  they 
should  feel  surprise  at  such  an  announcement  is  only 
one  of  very  many  indications  of  the  profound  change 
undergone  by  a  multitude  of  Christian  beliefs  in  the 
course  of  a  single  generation.  Only  a  few  years  ago  an 
orthodox  Christian  would  no  sooner  have  expressed 
doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  the  devil-stories  in  the  Gospels 
than  he  would  have  questioned  the  Godhead  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  or  the  value  of  the  historical  evidence  for 
the  Resurrection.^  Quite  recently  a  belief  in  demon- 
possession  held  sway  in  the  minds  even  of  highly 
cultured  European  Christians.  Of  this  fact  no  one 
can  be  oblivious  who  has  read  Huxley's  delightfully 
piquant  contributions  to  the  famous  controversy  on 
the  subject  of  the  Gadarene  swine — the  controversy  in 
which  Gladstone  fought  with  pathetic  doggedness  on 
the  side  of  the  pigs,  or  rather  on  the  side  of  their  be- 
devilment.  Even  now  it  is  too  soon  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  belief  in  devil-possession  is  restricted  to 
evangelical  pastors,  popes,  and  maiden  aunts. 

Two  years  ago  a  remarkable  collection  of  essays  by 
various  authors  was  issued  under  the  auspices  of  The 
Hihhert  Journal  with  the  title  Jesus  or  Christ?  The 
circumstances  in  which  these  essays  were  written  must 
be  well  known  to  a  large  number  of  my  readers.     The 

^  See  Huxley's  Science  and  Christian  Tradition  (Eversley  ed.),  pp. 
322-3.  The  passage  concludes  with  these  words:  "Finally,  in  these 
last  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  demonological  hypothesis  of  the 
first  century  are,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  held  and  occasionally  acted 
upon  by  the  immense  majority  of  Christians  of  all  confessions. " 


Christian  Demonology  149 

Rev.  R.  Roberts,  who  was  or  had  been  a  Congregational 
minister,  wrote  the  first  article,  in  which  with  great 
freedom  and  candour  he  dealt  with  the  problem  as  to 
whether  the  Christ  worshipped  by  Christians  as  in- 
carnate God  was  really  a  spiritual  * 'ideal"  (which  would 
not  necessarily  cease  to  retain  its  full  value  as  an  ideal 
even  if  it  were  proved  to  have  no  basis  in  historic 
fact),  or  whether  the  attributes  of  the  Christian  Christ 
may  in  very  truth  be  predicated  of  the  Jewish  artisan 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In  various  forms  this  question 
has  been  asked  again  and  again,  and  has  received  many 
different  answers.  Educated  men  have  long  known, 
and  the  masses  are  dimly  beginning  to  understand,  that 
the  Christ  of  theology  is  not  the  Jesus  of  history. '  If 
the  symposium  had  no  other  result,  it  would  be  of  high 
instructive  value  merely  as  a  means  of  opening  the 
eyes  of  multitudes  of  Christians  to  the  extraordinary 
diversity  of  opinions  on  fundamental  questions  held  to- 
day by  representative  members  of  the  various  Churches 
of  Christendom,  and  of  revealing  the  insubstantial 
basis  of  the  plea — commonly  urged  in  extenuation  of 
the  bitterness  of  sectarian  antagonisms — that  if  op- 
posed to  one  another  in  respect  to  organisation  and 
ritual,  the  Christian  Churches  and  sects  are  one  and 
undivided  in  respect  of  the  deepest  Christian  verities.^ 
But  what  we  are  here  concerned  with  are  merely  the 
utterances  of  the  various  writers  in  Jesus  or  Christ? 
with  regard  to  the  subject  of  devil-possession.     The 

^  Cj.  Sturt's  Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  pp.  237-8. 

2  A  very  interesting  and  valuable  criticism  of  the  Jesus  or  Christ  ? 
essays  appears  above  the  name  of  M.  Loisy  in  The  Hihhert  Journal  of 
April,  1910.  "After  reading, "  he  says,  "all  the  dissertations  which  the 
question  proposed  by  the  Rev.  R.  Roberts  has  provoked,  one  is  strongly 
tempted  to  think  that  contemporary  theology — except  for  Roman  Catho- 
lics, with  whom  traditional  orthodoxy  has  always  the  force  of  law — is  a 
veritable  Tower  of  Babel,  in  which  the  confusion  of  ideas  is  even  greater 
than  the  diversity  of  tongues"  (p.  496). 


ISO  Christian  Demonology 

following  are  among  the  remarks  made  by  Mr.  Roberts 
(very  justly,  as  many  of  us  will  allow)  on  the  subject 
of  the  alleged  exorcisms  carried  out  by  Jesus  of  Na- 
zareth. Referring  to  the  incident  narrated  in  Mark  i., 
23-26,  he  says: 

Here  is  acquiescence  in  the  animistic  theory  of  disease, 
and  an  exercise  of  exorcism  in  which  the  people  apparently 
thoroughly  believed.  Now  I  ask.  Did  Jesus  ''know  as 
God ' '  and  *  *  speak  as  man ' '  in  this  instance  ?  If  he  was  God, 
he  must  have  known  the  people's  opinion  was  an  error,  and 
an  error  too  the  theory  that  he  had  cast  an  evil  spirit  out 
of  this  man.  What  are  we  to  think  of  God,  who  permits 
such  things  and  becomes  a  party  to  this  exorcism?  If  he 
did  not  know  that  this  was  an  error,  then  his  knowledge 
was  at  fault,  and  what  are  we  to  think  of  a  God  with  limited 
knowledge?  Dr.  Fairbairn  and  his  followers  admit  these 
limitations  of  knowledge,  while  yet  claiming  that  this  ad- 
mittedly limited  Personality  was  at  the  same  time  ''Very 
God  of  Very  God."  These,  however,  are  not  merely  intel- 
lectual limitations.  There  are  also  ethical  limitations  in- 
volved, and  they  touch  on  the  theory  of  sinlessness.  In 
the  case  before  us  Jesus  permitted  the  people  to  believe 
that  which  was  not  true.  If  he  was  God,  he  knew  that  their 
belief  in  obsession  was  an  error;  he  must  have  known  that 
after  ages  would  quote  his  example  as  sanction  for  super- 
stition and  cruelty.^  We  are  therefore  driven  to  the 
conclusion  that  "One  who  had  all  the  knowledge  of  God 
declined  to  turn  any  part  of  it  into  science  for  man"  in  this 
instance,  and  thus  allowed  humanity  to  drift  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years  through  the  night  of  ignorance  and 
cruelty.  In  a  mere  man  this  ethical  limitation  would  be 
a  sin.     Is  it  otherwise  in  One  who  is  said  to  be  God?^ 

^  Mr.  Roberts  is  of  course  referring  to  persecutions  for  witchcraft,  etc. 

'^  Jesus  or  Christ?  (Williams  &  Norgate,  1909),  pp.  279-80.  See  also 
Mr.  Roberts's  later  article  in  TheHibbert  Journal  of  October,  1909,  p.  87; 
in  the  R.P.A.  Annual  for  191 1,  pp.  3-10,  and  in  The  Quest  for  October, 
19 10,  pp.  108-25. 


Christian  Demonology  151 

It  is  rather  significant  that  the  majority  of  Mr. 
Roberts's  critics  in  Jesus  or  Christ  ?  either  forbear  to 
enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  Gospel-stories  about 
devils,  or  admit  that  in  this  matter  Jesus  shared  the 
superstitions  of  his  age.  The  Rev.  James  Drummond, 
for  example,  allows  that  Jesus  ''accepted  the  general 
belief  of  his  time  about  demons,"  and  was  ''beyond 
reasonable  question"  mistaken  in  so  doing. ^  But  now 
let  us  turn  to  the  views  of  a  well-known  member  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  the  Rev.  Father  Rickaby,  who 
is  also  a  contributor  to  this  interesting  collection  of 
essays. 

No  blame  [he  says]  attaches  to  the  Rev.  R.  Roberts 
for  not  knowing  what,  I  presume,  has  never  come  in  his 
way — the  spirit  and  belief  of  Catholics  and  the  theology  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  Yet,  however  inculpable  this  ig- 
norance, his  argument  suffers  by  it.  He  assumes,  for 
instance,  as  a  thing  quite  certain,  that  there  never  was 
such  a  thing  as  diabolical  possession.  There  are  Catholic 
priests  who  could  assure  him  that  they  have  met  with  it 
in  their  own  experience  by  unmistakable  signs.  The 
Church  still  ordains  exorcists ;  and  occasionally,  with  caution 
by  permission  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  the  possessed 
are  solemnly  exorcised.^ 

That  good  Catholics  do  believe  and  must  believe  in 

^  Jesus  or  Christ  ?  p.  200. 

2  Ihid.,  p.  137.  In  Dr.  Famell's  Evolution  of  Religion,  p.  230,  occurs 
the  following  passage:  "What  maintained  the  use  of  the  spell-prayer  in 
full  vigour  throughout  the  earlier  and  mediaeval  epochs  of  Christendom, 
even  in  the  orthodox  ritual,  was  chiefly  the  practice  of  exorcism  and  the 
belief  in  demons  and  demoniac  possession.  ...  As  modern  society  has 
abandoned  such  institutions,  and  the  modern  mind  is  no  longer  possessed 
with  demonology,  so  in  the  modern  worship  prayer  has  become  more 
and  more  purified  from  the  associations  of  the  spell. "  Evidently  Dr. 
Farnell  was  hasty  in  assuming  that  "the  modern  mind  is  no  longer 
possessed  with  demonology,"  or  that  the  practice  of  "exorcism"  has 
been  abandoned. 


152  Christian  Demonology 

devil-possession  goes  without  saying,  inasmuch  as  its 
truth  is  guaranteed  by  a  Book  which  is  absolutely 
free  from  error  and  "has  God  for  its  author."'  But 
would  it  not  be  a  wise  and  poHtic  act  on  the  part  of 
the  Church  (in  view  of  the  widespread  scepticism  of 
the  present  day)  if  it  were  to  notify  the  College  of 
Physicians  on  all  future  occasions  when  a  solemn 
exorcism  is  about  to  take  place,  and  invite  a  few 
qualified  medical  men  to  attend  the  ceremony  in  the 
interests  of  science  and  true  religion?  It  would  be 
well,  also,  if  such  doctors  could  be  given  an  opportunity 
of  making  their  own  diagnosis  of  the  patient's  complaint 
before  the  ceremony  takes  place,  for  signs  that 
appeared  '•■unmistakable"  to  a  Catholic  priest  might 
be  quite  differently  interpreted  by  a  lay  physician. 

A  devil  is  not  a  creature  whose  existence  is  inde- 
pendently known  to  science  [says  Frederick  Myers].  The 
devils  with  terrifying  names  which  possessed  Soeur  Ange- 
lique  of  Loudun  v/ould  at  the  Salp^triere  under  Charcot  in 
our  days  have  figured  merely  as  stages  of  "clounisme"  and 
* '  attitudes  passionelles. ' '  ^ 

The  theory  of  devil-possession  is  not  confined  to 
Christianity.  In  ancient  Babylonia  ** devils"  were 
exorcised,  3  and,  in  the  Polynesian  islands   possession 


^  Gregory  the  Great  described  the  biblical  writers  as  the  Holy  Ghost's 
calami,  to  show  that  God  is  sole  and  direct  author  of  the  entire  canonical 
Scriptures. 

'Human  Personality,  vol.  ii.,  p.  199.     See  also  vol.  i.,  pp.  303  seq. 

3  See  Jastrow's  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  p.  272.  "For 
Hebrew  antiquity, "  says  another  author,  "direct  evidence  is  scanty,  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  common  people  in  Israel  differed 
much  from  their  neighbours.  Spooks  and  goblins  swarmed  in  their 
world,  Incuhi  and  SuccuhcB  were  perhaps  as  familiar  to  Hebrew  anti- 
quity as  to  mediaeval  Europe.     Cripples  and  abortions  were  the  result 


Christian  Demonology  153 

is,  or  was  till  lately,  regarded  as  a  common  cause  of 
disease.  As  similar  beliefs  have  existed  for  ages  in 
China,  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries  meet 
with  no  difficulty  in  persuading  their  ignorant  Chinese 
adherents  of  the  truth  of  this  part  of  Christian  doctrine. 
A  well-known  missionary,  Dr.  Nevius,  wrote  a  book  in 
which  he  cheerfully  admitted  his  entire  belief  in  the 
genuineness  of  demon-possession  in  China,  and  cites  a 
large  number  of  cases.  ''Every  page,"  wrote  one  of 
his  critics,'  "bears  witness  to  the  author's  desire  to  be 
exact  in  description,  unbiassed  in  interpretation,  and 
just  in  criticism;  it  is  rather  his  misfortune  than  his 
fault  that  he  has  fallen  so  far  short  of  the  mark  in 
all  three  respects."  Yet  Dr.  Nevius  by  no  means 
stands  alone.  "We  may  well  catch  our  breath," 
writes  one  of  the  foremost  American  psychologists, 
"when  we  find  Protestant  missionaries  in  Korea, 
China,  India,  and  Africa  giving  their  assent  to  the 
theory  of  demon-possession."''  Catholic  missionaries 
have  shown  quite  as  much  zeal  as  their  Protestant 
rivals  in  performing  exorcisms  in  devil-ridden  China. 
A  delightfully  naive  accoimt  of  such  proceedings  is 
given  in  a  letter  written  in  1862  by  a  French 
missionary-bishop . 

of  demonic  lust,  as  the  nephilim  sprang  from  the  marriage  of  angels 
with  the  daughters  of  Adam.  Disease  was  demoniac  in  origin  and  the 
healing  art  consisted  in  exorcism"  (The  American  Journal  of  Theology j 
October  1909,  p.  605). 

^  Prof.  W.  Romaine  Newbold,  quoted  in  Myers's  Human  Personality^ 
vol.  ii.,  pp.  500-1. 

2  Prof.  G.  A.  Coe  in  The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1909, 
p.  340.  He  cites  the  following  witnesses  as  to  demon-possession:  for 
Korea,  D.  K.  Lambuth,  "Korean  Devils  and  Christian  Missionaries," 
in  the  Independent,  August,  1907,  pp.  287  seq.;  for  China,  Dr.  Nevius,  in 
his  Demon  Possession  (Chicago,  1895);  for  India,  H.  S.  Dyer,  in  Revival 
in  India  (London,  1907),  esp.  pp.  14  seq.;  for  Africa,  R.  H.  Nassau,  in  his 
Fetichism  in  West  Africa  (New  York,  1904),  pp.  135-7. 


154  Christian  Demonology 

Will  you  believe  me?  [he  says].  Ten  whole  villages 
have  been  converted !  The  Devil  is  furious  et  fait  les  cent 
coups.  There  have  been  five  or  six  cases  of  possession 
during  the  fortnight  that  I  have  been  preaching.  Our 
catechumens  drive  out  the  devils  and  heal  the  sick  with 
holy  water.  I  have  seen  some  marvellous  things!  The 
Devil  has  been  of  great  assistance  to  me  in  converting  the 
pagans.  Just  as  in  our  Lord's  time,  he  cannot  help  himself 
speaking  the  truth,  although  he  is  the  father  of  lies!  Hear 
what  happened  in  the  case  of  a  poor  possessed  fellow  who 
uttered  loud  cries  and  went  through  a  thousand  contor- 
tions. "Why  do  you  preach  the  true  religion?'*  says  the 
Devil.  "I  cannot  endure  to  see  you  rob  me  of  my  dis- 
ciples ! '  *  * '  What  is  your  name  ? ' '  asks  the  catechumen.  For 
some  time  he  refuses  to  reply,  then  says,  *'I  have  been 
sent  by  Lucifer."  "How  many  of  you  are  there?" 
"There  are  twenty- two  of  us."  Holy  water  and  the  sign 
of  the  cross  delivered  this  possessed  one  from  his  devils.^ 

Thus  poor  simple  Satan  was  made  a  fool  of  as  usual, 
and  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts  to  carry  out  his  appropriate 
role  as  collector  of  souls  for  hell  he  found  himself  in 
the  mortifying  and  ridiculous  position  of  being  made 
chief  collaborator  with  a  Catholic  bishop  in  winning 
recruits  for  heaven! 

The  conversion  of  the  ten  villages  referred  to  in  this 
letter  occurred  half  a  century  ago.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  what  has  happened  to  those  converts 
and  their  children  during  the  interval.  Are  they  still 
Christians?  If  so,  do  they  still  believe  in  talking  devils 
and  in  a  personal  Lucifer?  If  so,  does  Western  Chris- 
tendom, which  is  responsible  for  this  folly,  propose  to 
allow  them  to  continue  in  such  beliefs?  If  not,  are 
they  to  be  told  that  the  wonderful  bishop  and  his 

^  This  letter  is  quoted  in  the  original  French  by  Dr.  Tylor  in  his 
Primitive  Culture,  vol.  ii.,  p.  141  (4th  ed.). 


Christian  Demonology  155 

still  more  remarkable  catechumens  were  victims  of 
delusion,  or  were  ignorant  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
complaints  which  they  diagnosed  as  devil-possession, 
and  that  the  conversions  to  Christianity  were  therefore 
wholly  or  partially  due  to  misapprehensions  on  both 
sides? 

Satan  and  his  devils,  we  find,  were  not  to  be  "bluffed " 
out  of  China  by  a  wily  French  bishop  and  his  magic 
water  and  crucial  taHsmans.  That  remarkable  period- 
ical China's  Millions,  to  which  I  have  had  occasion 
to  refer  so  often,  contains  numerous  accoimts  of 
successful  exorcisms  by  Protestant  missionaries."  The 
following  paragraph  was  published  as  recently  as 
August,  1909: 

Demons  Cast  Out. 

There  was  another  experience  at  Autung  Ku  not  met 
with  at  Tsingkiangpu  nor  at  Nanking— four  demon-pos- 
sessed women  and  one  man,  who  all  sought  the  prayers  of 
God's  people  for  deliverance.  Some  had  been  partly  set 
free  from  the  devil's  chains,  but  one  poor  woman  was 
possessed  when  she  came  to  the  platform.  Such  a  sight 
I  had  never  before  witnessed.  We  called  upon  all  to  pray 
for  her,  and  then  came  one  of  those  outbursts  of  simul- 
taneous prayer  that  so  often  come  at  revival  times.  Over 
three  hundred  people  rose  to  their  feet  at  once  and  poured 
forth  a  volume  of  prayer  that  was  simply  grand  to  hear. 
All  prayed  in  their  own  words  aloud,  yet  no  confusion;  all 
commenced  together  and  all  ended  together,  yet  there  was 
no  prompting  from  man,  but  the  Holy  Spirit  was  in  full 
control.  .  .  .  The  woman  went  from  the  platform  de- 
livered, and  was  again  on  the  platform  in  the  evening,  in 
her  right  mind,  confessing  her  sins.^ 

»  For  some  interesting  observations  on  this  subject  see  Arthur  Daven- 
port's China  from  Within,  pp.  120-26. 
a  China's  Millions,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  125. 


156  Christian  Demonology 

The  fact  that  both  Protestants  and  Catholics  seem 
to  perform  exorcisms  with  equal  success  though  by 
different  methods  should  help  very  materially,  one 
would  suppose,  to  induce  the  rival  Christian  bodies  to 
show  more  charity  and  good- will  towards  one  another's 
propaganda  than  they  have  hitherto  found  it  convenient 
to  cultivate :  yet  it  does  not  seem  to  have  had  that  de- 
sirable effect.  If  Satan  and  his  angels  work  indis- 
criminately against  both  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
and  may  be  expelled  from  human  bodies  with  equal 
success  by  holy  water  or  a  Bible,  a  Jesuit  priest  or  a 
Presbyterian  minister,  surely  it  should  be  obvious  to 
both  branches  of  the  Christian  Church  that  priest  and 
minister  must  both  be  waging  heaven's  war  against 
hell.  If,  as  some  Protestants  believe,  the  Catholics 
are  really  fellow-workers  with  the  powers  of  darkness, 
how  do  they  account  for  the  fact  that  the  devils  work 
against  their  own  allies,  and  on  numerous  occasions 
have  been  shamed  and  put  to  rout  by  CathoHc  exor- 
cists? 

That  certain  Protestant  missionaries  in  China  do 
regard  their  Catholic  brothers  as  limbs  of  the  Evil 
One  may  be  proved  without  difficulty.  "It  is  note- 
worthy," says  a  missionary  in  Formosa,  "that  a  good 
proportion  of  our  people  [that  is,  Protestant  converts] 
who  have  been  disciplined  for  evil  conduct,  ultimately 
find  a  haven  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church."^  In 
other  words,  the  good  Protestants  reject  what  is 
evil:  the  bad  Catholics  welcome  it.  In  a  recent 
issue  of  China's  Millions  I  read  of  a  Chinese  who, 
though  "formerly  a  good  Christian,"  had  "gone 
over  to  Rome" — the  necessary  deduction  being  that 
he  had  thereby  ceased  to  be  a  Christian  or  had 
become  a  bad  one. 

*  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  497. 


Christian  Demonology  157 

Some  of  the  people  [says  the  writer]  had  gone  over  to 
Rome  because  we  would  not  take  up  their  lawsuits,  but 
the  Spirit  of  God  broke  them  terribly.  If  people  in  this 
land  are  going  to  Rome,  it  is  because  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
absent.  ...  It  is  not  the  Spirit's  leading  at  all.  It  is 
the  DeviVs  leading.  Wherever  the  Spirit  of  God  came  he 
swept  out  that  nonsense  and  the  people  came  right  back.  * 

And  yet  I  have  heard  Western  travellers  in  China 
express  surprise  that  Protestant  and  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries living  in  the  same  town  do  not  exchange 
visits ! 

^  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  p.  96.  Cf.  the  views  of  Robert  Burton 
in  his  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  pt.  iii.,  sect,  iv.,  mem.  i. :  "That  the  Devil 
is  most  busy  amongst  us  that  are  of  the  true  Church,  appears  by  those 
several  appositions,  heresies,  schisms,  which  in  all  ages  he  hath  raised  to 
subvert  it,  and  in  that  of  Rome  especially,  wherein  Antichrist  himself 
now  sits  and  plays  his  prize. " 


CHAPTER  XI 

HELL  AND  THE  DAMNATION  OF  THE  HEATHEN 

HAVE  the  bulk  of  the  Christian  missionaries  in 
China  yet  abandoned  the  belief  once  firmly 
held  and  taught  by  the  Church  that  the  "heathen'* 
are  destined  for  the  fires  of  hell?  One  wotdd  like  to 
think  that  this  is  one  of  the  horrible  perversions  of  the 
Jewish  prophet's  teachings  that  have  been  quietly 
abandoned;  but  the  evidence  is  hardly  such  as  to 
justify  this  view.    , 

Dr.  G.  E.  Morrison  mentions  a  missionary  who  after 
three  years'  work  had  baptised  six  converts,  and  con- 
sidered that  his  labours  had  been  abundantly  blessed. 
On  the  question  of  the  destiny  of  the  heathen  he  held 
views  that  were  as  definite  as  they  were  uncompro- 
mising. 

Those  Chinese  who  have  never  heard  the  gospel  will 
be  judged  by  the  Almighty  as  he  thinks  fit,  but  those 
Chinese  who  have  heard  the  Christian  doctrine  and  still 
steel  their  hearts  against  the  Holy  Ghost  will  assuredly 
go  to  hell;  there  is  no  help  for  them,  they  can  believe  and 
they  won't;  had  they  believed,  their  reward  would  be 
eternal;  they  refuse  to  believe,  and  their  punishment  will 
be  eternal." 

Dr.  Morrison  adds  an  appropriate  comment:  **It 
was  a  curious  study  to  observe  the  equanimity  with 
which  this  good-natured  man  contemplates  the  work 

158 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen   159 

he  has  done  in  China,  when  to  obtain  six  dubious 
conversions  he  has  on  his  own  confession  sent  some 
thousands  of  unoffending  Chinese  en  enjer  bouillir 
eternellement.'^'^  The  same  writer  cites  the  following 
observation  from  the  pen  of  the  Secretary  of  the  China 
Inland  Mission.  "  Do  we  believe  that  these  millions 
are  without  hope  in  the  next  world?  We  turn  the 
leaves  of  God's  Word  in  vain,  for  there  we  find  no 
hope;  not  only  that,  but  positive  words  to  the  con- 
trary.   Yes!  we  believe  it." ^ 

In  an  able  paper  by  Dr.  Rashdall  on  "The  Motive 
of  Modem  Missionary  Work,"^  there  is  an  interesting 
passage  bearing  on  this  subject.  He  refers  to  the 
belief  of  ''orthodox  people  of  the  last  generation"  that 
"the  whole  heathen  world  was  doomed  to  everlasting 
torments  unless  they  heard  and  accepted  what  is 
technically  called  'the  gospel,'"  and  remarks  that 
"it  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  argue  against  such  a 
view  at  the  present  day."  Perhaps  Dr.  Rashdall 
would  not  consider  it  a  waste  of  time  if  he  were  to  come 
to  China  and  listen  to  the  teachings  of  certain  mis- 
sionaries, or  even  if  he  were  to  glance  at  a  few  of  their 
periodicals.  He  hints,  indeed,  at  the  possibiHty  that 
the  etemal-pimishment  view  is  not  extinct  in  England 
itself. 

There  are  [he  says]  probably  large  numbers  of  per- 
sons— conservative  theologians  and  by  no  means  illiterate 
clergymen  as  well  as  the  wholly  ignorant — who  would 
refuse  definitely  to  disclaim  the  possibility  of  everlasting 
punishment  befalling  relatively  good  men  who  die  without 
having  heard  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ;  still  more  of 
them  would  admit  that  such  a  fate  might  be  in  store  for 

« An  Australian  in  China,  p.  66. 

2  Op.  ciL,  p.  67. 

3  American  Journal  oj  Theology,  Ji^y,  1907,  pp.  369  seq. 


i6o  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

those  who  have  heard,  but  not  accepted,  the  "terms  of 
salvation"  contained,  or  supposed  to  be  contained,  in  the 
New  Testament — a  possibility  which  has  sometimes,  with 
undeniable  logic,  been  actually  twisted  around  into  an 
argument  against  missions  to  the  heathen.  It  has  been 
argued  that  by  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  heathen  we  are 
involving  them  in  a  doom  which  involuntary  ignorance 
might  otherwise  exempt  them. 

If  the  premises  are  granted  the  logic  of  the  argument 
is  indeed  unansv/erable. 

Nowadays  there  are  many  English  and  American 
churchmen  who  are  keenly  anxious  to  surrender  that 
terrible  bogey,  the  Athanasian  Creed,  one  of  their 
chief  objections  to  it  being  its  reiterated  assertion  that 
unbelievers  in  the  incomprehensible  dogmas  of  the 
Church  shall  **  without  doubt  perish  everlastingly." 
Yet  only  the  other  day  there  was  held  in  England  a 
meeting  of  indignant  Anglican  priests  and  laymen,  who 
not  only  expressed  themselves  strongly  opposed  to  the 
suggested  deposition  of  the  Creed  from  its  place  of  hon- 
our, but  emphatically  asserted  their  uncompromising  be- 
lief in  its  principles  and  their  adherence  to  its  tenets.  ^ 
If  cultivated  Englishmen  in  the  twentieth  century  can 

*  "At  a  general  meeting  of  the  English  Church  Union,  held  last  night 
at  the  Church  House,  the  subject  for  consideration  was  'The  Athana- 
sian Creed  and  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury.'  Lord  Halifax  presided, 
and  there  was  a  large  attendance.  The  Chairman,  on  opening  the  meet- 
ing, announced  that  a  very  large  number  of  letters  had  been  received 
from  persons  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  throughout  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, afiSirming  their  determination  and  steadfast  resolution  to  resist 
any  alteration  in  the  position  and  status  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer.  (Cheers.)  .  .  .  It  had  been  made  abundantly 
clear  that  the  use  of  the  Creed  was  being  attacked  because  it  was  the 
truth  of  the  statements  made  by  the  Creed  that  was  denied.  They  were 
told  without  hesitation  that  the  Creed  was  attacked  because  its  state- 
ments were  not  true.  Then  they  knew  where  they  were,  and  they  had 
but  one  answer — the  Creed  was  true,  and  they  would  defend  it  to  the 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen   i6i 

honestly  and  without  any  mental  reservation  accept 
the  teachings  of  that  most  extraordinary  of  ecclesi- 
astical documents,  it  need  not  surprise  us  to  find  that 
there  are  missionaries  in  China  who  adhere  to  the 
stupefying  doctrine  that  an  omnipotent  and  benevo- 
lent God  intends  to  inflict  upon  millions  of  innocent 
men,  women,  and  children  a  degree  of  torture  which  in 
no  conceivable  circumstances  would  have  been  sanc- 
tioned by  any  of  the  most  infamous  and  bloodthirsty 
human  monsters  that  have  ever  wielded  a  tyrant's 
sceptre;  and  that  this  terrific  punishment  is  to  be 
inflicted  by  the  all-loving  Father  because  his  miserable 
victims  failed  to  guess  the  right  answer  to  the  inscru- 
table riddle  of  the  universe.  We  execrate  the  wicked- 
ness of  the  king  in  the  fairy  tale  who  promised  his 
daughter's  hand  to  the  man  who  guessed  the  royal 
conundrums  successfully,  and  cut  off  the  heads  of  all 
the  suitors  who  guessed  wrongly;  but  we  are  to  love 


death.  .  .  .  Any  alteration  of  the  present  Prayer  Book  by  subterfuges 
by  which  the  recitation  of  the  Creed  was  to  be  withdrawn  from  public 
use  they  repudiated  and  rejected.  They  would  have  none  of  it,  and  they 
would  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  struggle  against  and  resist  all  pro- 
posals for  tampering  with  the  present  use  and  position  of  the  Athana- 
sian  Creed  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  (Cheers.) " — [The  Times, 
Nov.  i8,  1909.]  See  also  Canon  Newbolt's  book  of  sermons  entitled 
The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  (Mowbray,  1909).  The  Canon  (who  also 
strenuously  opposes  the  withdrawal  of  the  Creed)  admits  that  it  is 
"difficult  to  understand, "  yet  assures  us  that  it  "is  regarded  as  a  magni- 
ficent exposition  of  doctrine,  even  by  those  who  wish  to  silence  it. "  It 
may  be  magnificent  as  an  exposition  of  doctrine,  but — if  Lord  Halifax 
and  his  friends  will  allow  us  to  ask  the  question — does  the  doctrine  hap- 
pen to  be  true?  See  a  sensible  article  on  the  subject  by  Prof.  W.  Emery 
Barnes  in  The  Contemporary  Review,  July,  1909,  pp.  58-61.  He  reminds 
his  readers  of  various  ritual-defects  that  constitute  festering  wounds, 
"through  which  the  strength  of  our  Church  ebbs  daily  away";  and  says 
that  of  all  the  causes  of  danger  perhaps  none  is  greater  than  the 
compulsory  recitation  of  the  damnatory  or  minatory  clauses  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed. 


i62  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

fervently  and  worship  obsequiously  a  God  who  acts 
with  infinitely  more  atrocious  wickedness  on  an  in- 
finitely larger  scale. 

In  a  missionary  journal  published  as  recently  as 
December,  1909,  there  is  an  article  describing  the  need 
for  evangehstic  work  among  Chinese  women.  **We 
feel  the  first  step  toward  successful  efforts  in  this  line,** 
says  the  writer,  *'is  to  feel  deeply  the  importance  of  it 
and  the  utter  hopelessness  of  their  lost  condition  apart 
from  salvation  in  Jesus  Christ."^  A  writer  in  another 
recent  issue  of  the  same  journal  dwells  on  *'the  neces- 
sity laid  upon  us  to  be  instant  in  season  and  out  of 
season  that  the  millions  still  in  heathen  darkness  in 
this  land  may  have  the  gospel  given  to  them  ere  they 
pass  out  into  eternal  darkness  and  doom^^  In  another 
journal  a  man  named  Wu  is  mentioned  "who  (D.V.) 
will  shortly  be  baptised — another  'brand  plucked  out 
of  the  fire.  * "  ^  Quotations  of  this  kind  could  be  multi- 
plied to  any  desired  extent,  for  missionary  journals  of 
the  kind  here  dealt  with  contain  but  few  gleams  of  a 
larger  hope.  Arthur  Judson  Brown,  indeed,  in  his 
recent  work,  The  Why  and  How  of  Foreign  Missions, 
is  gracious  enough  to  say,  ^'  It  is  possible  that  some  who 
have  never  heard  of  Christ  may  be  saved."  ^  But, 
alas!  this  leaves  the  terrible  counter-possibiHty  unde- 
throned. 

Barbarism  in  religion  dies  hard,  for  though  it  is 
nearly  three  hundred  years  since  mercifully-minded 
people  in  England  tried  to  modify  or  abolish  the  brutal 
theory  of  the  necessary  damnation  of  the  non-Christian 
races,    they   have   only   partially   succeeded   in   their 

^  Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East,  Dec,  1909,  p.  168. 
'Ibid.,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  113. 

3  China's  Millions,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  155. 

4  The  italics  in  these  quotations  are  not  in  the  originals. 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen  163 

object,  after  all  this  time.  Archbishop  Laud  preached 
that  the  heathen  might  be  saved  from  hell,  and  this 
heterodox  teaching  of  his  actually  made  the  subject 
of  one  of  the  charges  brought  against  him  by  the  Puri- 
tans. It  is  of  peculiar  interest  to  observe  that  a 
similar  charge  has  been  made  in  this  twentieth  century 
against  a  missionary  who  was  suspected  by  some  of 
his  more  orthodox  colleagues  of  having  expressed 
unsoimd  views  on  the  subject  of  eternal  damnation, 
in  a  book  that  bore  the  suspiciously  latitudinarian 
title  of  The  Wideness  of  God's  Mercy,  His  accusers 
felt  it  their  duty  to  **  protest  against  the  falling  away 
from  the  orthodox  beHef  in  eternal  punishment  as 
held  by  a  number  of  devoted  missionaries. ' ' '  However, 
the  alarm  in  the  orthodox  camp  was  apparently  a  false 
one.  The  accused  missionary  hastened  to  explain 
that  he  was  still  a  staimch  supporter  of  the  cheerful 
hypothesis  of  an  eternal  hell.  To  prove  his  orthodoxy 
he  issued  a  manifesto  from  which  the  following  is  a 
quotation: 

In  view  of  statements  which  are  being  circulated  with 
respect  to  my  teaching  as  to  the  Future  State,  and  which 
are  based  on  considerable  misunderstanding  of  my  position, 
I  wish  to  say:  (i)  I  accept  as  final  our  Lord's  words  in 
Matthew  xxv.,  46,  so  far  as  those  are  concerned  who  have 
deliberately  rejected  Christ^  ...  (5)  I  do  not  preach  the 
"Larger  Hope."  There  appears  to  me  insurmountable 
difficulties  in  maintaining  that  every  one  will  be  saved.  ^ 

^  The  Chinese  Recorder,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  485. 

2  "And  the  King  shall  answer  and  say  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me.  Then  shall  he  say  also  unto  them 
on  the  left  hand,  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire,  pre- 
pared for  the  devil  and  his  angels.  .  .  .  And  these  shall  go  away  into 
everlasting  punishment:  but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal. " — Matt,  xxv., 
40,  41,  46.  3  Ihid.,  July,  1909,  p.  364. 


i64  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

Thus  we  see  that  so  far  as  this  missionary  is  concerned 
the  Christianity  propagated  in  China  will  continue 
to  be  the  Christianity  that  damns  the  unbeliever.  ^ 

It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  the  scriptural  denun- 
ciations of  the  heathen  are  apparently  capable  of  a 
more  amiable  interpretation  than  that  given  us  by 
Christian  missionaries.  In  an  analysis  by  the  Rev. 
D.  Prunes,  D.D.,  of  the  various  notions  regarding  the 
state  of  the  dead  that  have  existed  among  Jews  and 
Christians  at  various  epochs,  he  sums  up  thus: 

In  fact  it  comes  to  this,  that  both  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  the  verdict  is  an  agnostic  one  as  regards  the 
unbelieving;  while  the  weight  of  the  case  as  regards  the 
righteous  is  made  to  rest  on  the  present  fact  of  a  fellowship 
with  God,  which  will  be  extended  beyond  death  into 
eternity.^ 

The  missionary  body  should  rejoice  with  exceeding 
gladness  to  learn  that  there  is  still  the  ghost  of  a  chance 
of  salvation  for  the  unbelieving  heathen,  and  that  the 
** positive  words"  referred  to  by  the  secretary  of  the 
China  Inland  Mission  ^  have  been  interpreted  by  com- 
petent scholars  in  a  sense  surprisingly  different  from 

^  As  one  of  the  unbelievers,  and  therefore  as  one  of  the  damned,  per- 
haps I  may  be  excused  for  suggesting  that  if  a  shred  of  justice  remains  in 
heaven  the  decree  of  damnation  must  surely  include  those  Christians 
who,  however  pious  they  may  be  in  their  Christian  environment,  would 
have  clung  to  their  heathen  faith  if  they  had  been  born  in  a  heathen  land.  If 
this  be  not  so,  it  is  clear  that  God  punishes  people  with  everlasting 
torture  and  rewards  others  with  everlasting  bliss,  not  through  any  merit 
or  demerit  of  their  own,  but  on  account  of  the  environment  in  which  he 
himself  has  chosen  to  place  them.  No  living  Christian,  of  course,  can 
say  what  religion  he  would  have  followed  if  he  had  been  born  elsewhere 
than  in  a  Christian  land;  but  God's  knowledge  ex  hypothesi  is  not  subject 
to  human  limitations. 

'  The  Hibbert  Journal,  Oct.,  1907,  p.  95. 

3  See  p.  159. 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen  165 

that  read  into  them  by  him.  Undoubtedly  the  mis- 
sionaries should  rejoice:  but  will  they  do  so?  A  very 
common  and  very  remarkable  characteristic  oflpeople 
who  believe  that  the  all-loving  heavenly  Father  will 
inflict  eternal  punishment  on  sinners  is  that  the  doc- 
trine seems  to  fill  their  pious  minds  with  a  peculiar 
kind  of  grim  satisfaction  and  in  no  way  lowers  their 
estimation  of  the  goodness  of  God;  while  if  they  hear 
doubts  expressed  as  to  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  they 
are  shocked  and  dismayed  as  if  they  had  received  un- 
welcome news.  A  Presbyterian  Scot  was  once  recom- 
mended to  visit  a  certain  church  for  the  purpose  of 
hearing  a  noted  preacher.  ''Does  he  preach  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  damnation?"  was  the  good  man's 
question.  On  receiving  an  answer  in  the  negative,  he 
replied:  "Ah,  but  I  hold  with  that  doctrine.  I  shall 
not  go  near  his  church." 

I  suppose  that  one  most  weighty  reason  why  mission- 
aries are  reluctant  to  surrender  the  gloomy  theory  that 
the  heathen  are  eternally  lost  is  that  by  such  a  sur- 
render they  deprive  themselves  of  one  of  the  strongest 
arguments,  if  not  the  very  strongest,  in  favour  of  the 
great  missionary  enterprise.  **If  the  heathen  can  get 
along  without  us,  both  in  this  world  and  in  the  next, 
why  take  the  trouble  to  convert  them?"  This  is  a 
very  reasonable  question,  and  probably  the  cause  why 
one  does  not  often  hear  it  put  in  this  direct  form  is 
that  there  is  a  growing  tendency  to  relegate  to  the 
background  the  credal  and  dogmatic  constituents  of 
the  Christian  faith.  In  China  the  medical  man  and 
the  strictly  educational  missions  are  doing  work  to 
which  no  sane  man  nowadays  dreams  of  raising  a 
serious  objection;  on  the  contrary,  they  evoke  little 
but  gratitude  from  all  Chinese  whose  opinion  is  worth 
quoting  or  consulting.     We  Chinese  are  supposed  to 


i66  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

be  a  callous  and  undemonstrative  race;  yet  if  the  life 
of  a  sick  Chinese  child  is  saved  by  the  ministrations  of 
a  missionary  doctor,  it  is  not  unHkely  that  the  child's 
father  will  feel  lifelong  gratitude  towards  his  foreign 
benefactor.  But  if  the  doctor  in  his  capacity  of 
evangelist  improves  the  occasion  by  trying  to  con- 
vince the  Chinese  father  that  the  safety  of  his  own 
soul  and  that  of  his  much-loved  son  depend  on  their 
acceptance  of  the  belief  that  a  Jewish  carpenter  called 
Jesus  forfeited  his  life  two  thousand  years  ago  for  the 
purpose  of  redeeming  sinful  mankind  from  the  wrath 
of  an  angry  Deity,  it  is  more  than  possible  that  the 
Chinese  parent,  however  sincerely  he  would  like  to 
please  his  benefactor,  will  find  it  quite  impossible  to 
work  up  an  enthusiastic  response.  The  fact  that  the 
missionary  in  his  capacity  as  doctor  saved  his  child's 
life  will  make  him  treat  all  Europeans  with  considera- 
tion from  that  day  forward;  the  fact  that  the  mis- 
sionary in  his  capacity  as  evangelist  wants  him  to 
believe  that  his  soul  is  in  jeopardy  imless  he  **  accepts 
Christ"  leaves  him  strangely  cold. 

When  missionaries  try  to  inspire  their  Chinese  audi- 
ences with  dread  of  the  hell-fires  of  evangelical  Christi- 
anity they  should  remember  that  we  Chinese  have  all 
heard  of  hell  from  our  own  Buddhist  priests,  and  that 
if  most  of  us  refused  long  ago  to  believe  in  the  bludgeons 
and  pincers  and  saws  and  racks  of  the  Buddhist  hell 
we  know  of  no  good  reason  why  we  should  beHeve  in 
the  flames  of  the  hell  described  by  Christians.  You 
will  tell  us,  perhaps,  that  the  fires  of  your  hell  are 
spiritual  fires,  not  like  the  ordinary  fires  that  bum  in 
your  grates;  but  the  Buddhist  priests  tell  us  much  the 
same  about  their  racks  and  pincers.  Moreover,  if  it 
be  true  that  Christians  are  beginning  to  spiritualise 
their  hell  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  refining  process 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen  167 

is  far  from  complete.^  Some  of  my  readers  must  be 
acquainted  with  that  vivid  description  of  hell — it 
might  be  said  with  accuracy  to  be  a  glowing  descrip- 
tion— which  was  perpetrated  by  one  who  has  been 
happily  designated  ''an  ecclesiastic  of  most  appro- 
priate name — the  Rev.  J.  Furniss.'*  The  description 
is  too  long  to  quote, ""  but  the  following  are  the  words  in 
which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Furniss  describes  the  torments 
endured  by  a  boy  who  has  been  sent  to  hell  as  a  punish- 
ment for  the  terrific  crimes  of  attending  ''dancing- 
houses,  public-houses,  and  theatres." 

The  boy's  eyes  [he  says]  are  burning  like  two  burning 
coals.  Two  long  flames  come  out  of  his  ears.  His  breathing 
is  difficult.  Sometimes  he  opens  his  mouth,  and  breath  of 
blazing  fire  rolls  out  of  it.  But  hsten!  There  is  a  sound 
just  like  that  of  a  kettle  boiling.  Is  it  really  a  kettle  which 
is  boiling?  No.  Then  what  is  it?  Hear  what  it  is.  The 
blood  is  boiling  in  the  scalded  veins  of  that  boy.  The  brain 
is  boiling  and  bubbling  in  his  head.  The  marrow  is  boiling 
in  his  bones. 

The  boy,  perhaps  it  will  be  said,  was  old  enough  to 

^  "The  Roman  Catholic  Church  still  teaches  not  only  that  the  purga- 
torial fire  is  material,  but  that  it  is  situated  in  the  middle  of  the  earth; 
but  it  is  certain  that  educated  Romanists  do  not  believe  this.  We  cannot 
cast  stones  at  them,  for  in  our  Church  the  teaching  about  the  Ascension 
is  equally  chaotic.  The  story  of  a  Hteral  flight  through  the  air  is  still 
treasured  by  many  people,  though  we  have  all,  I  suppose,  abandoned  the 
idea  of  a  geographical  heaven,  which  alone  gave  to  it  a  coherent  mean- 
ing" (Dr.  W.  R.  Inge's  Personal  Idealism  and  Mysticism,  p.  150).  It 
may  be  mentioned  incidentally  that  the  alleged  fact  of  the  Ascension  of 
Christ  through  the  air  and  clouds  is  still  taught  to  gaping  Chinese  villa- 
gers by  many  missionaries  in  China.  Is  it  the  wish  of  Christendom 
that  this  teaching  should  continue? 

2  It  will  be  found  in  John  Wilson's  New  Light  on  Old  Problems  (R.  P.  A 
Reprint,  pp.  64-5).  See  also  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  Agnostic's  Apology 
(R.  P.  A.  Reprint,  pp.  40  seq.). 


i68  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

know  good  from  evil,  and  if  he  insisted  upon  going  to 
theatres  and  otherwise  playing  into  the  hands  of  Satan 
he  has  only  himself  to  blame,  though  his  brain  boil 
and  bubble  to  all  eternity.  But  what  are  we  to  say 
about  the  tortures  inflicted  upon  little  children? 

See!  it  is  a  pitiful  sight.  The  little  child  is  in  this  red-hot 
oven.  Hear  how  it  screams  to  come  out !  See  how  it  turns 
and  twists  itself  about  in  the  fire!  It  beats  its  head  against 
the  roof  of  the  oven.  It  stamps  its  little  feet  on  the  floor  of 
the  oven.  You  can  see  on  the  face  of  this  little  child  what 
you  see  on  the  face  of  all  in  hell — despair,  desperate  and 
horrible! 

Such  are  the  words  chosen  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fumiss 
to  describe  the  results  of  incurring  the  displeasiu-e  of 
one's  all-loving  and  boundlessly  merciful  Father  in 
heaven.  One  is  inclined  vaguely  to  wonder  whether 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Fumiss  will  himself  be  present  when  the 
roll-call  of  the  saints  is  called  in  paradise,  or  whether — 
perhaps  from  the  depths  of  an  oven — ^he  will  answer 
to  his  name  elsewhere. 

Farrer  declared  that  he  would  die  as  the  beasts  that 
perish  ''rather  than  his  worst  enemy  should  endure  the 
hell  described  by  Tertullian,  or  Minucius  Felix,  or 
Jonathan  Edwards,  or  Dr.  Pusey,  or  Mr.  Furniss,  or 
Mr.  Moody,  or  Mr.  Spurgeon,  for  one  single  year."  Yet 
there  are  missionaries  in  China  to-day  who  glory  in 
the  fact  that  their  theology  is  the  theology  of  Spurgeon.  ^ 
Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  we  Chinese  have  not  yet 
embraced  the  Christian  faith  when  this  is  the  form  in 
which  it  reaches  us? 

My  readers  will  doubtless  agree  that  the  most 
barbarous  form  ever  taken  by  the  damnation  theory  was 
the  doctrine  that  the  heathen  child  who  died  in  infancy 

'  See  page  304. 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen  169 

was  no  less  assuredly  damned  than  the  most  perverse 
of  adult  sinners.     I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  this  appal- 
ling doctrine  of  infant  damnation  does  not  still  carry 
on  a  spider-Hke  existence  in  some  of  the  dark  and 
dusty  corners  of  missionary  Christianity.     Certainly 
it  was  not  extinct  within  the  memory  of  men  still 
living.'     I  sincerely  trust  that  the  humane  pubHc  of 
Europe  and  America  to  whom  this  Appeal  is  addressed 
will  in  future  take  care  that  the  funds  so  lavishly  sub- 
scribed by  them  for  the  advancement  of  Christianity 
in  China  are  not  used  to  support  or  disseminate  teach- 
ings of  this  abominable  nature.     Is  it  to  be  wondered 
at    that    intelHgent    non-Christians    have    sometimes 
asked  whether  there  can  be  any  truth  whatever  in  a 
theological  system  that  finds  room  for  such  revolting 
tenets?     A  mental  self -presentment  of  the  tortures  of 
hell  doubtless  gives  to  people  of  a   certain  type  of 
morbid  temperament  a  pecuHar  kind  of  sombre  hap- 
piness.    But  the  '*  Puritan  temperament,"  if  I  may 
call  it  so,   is  not,    so  far  as  I  can  judge,  common 
among  the  Chinese,  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  it  will  become  so:  and  I  venture  emphati- 
cally to  declare  on  behalf  of  all  my  countrymen  that 
we  are  quite  prepared  to  face  the  loss,  for  all  time,  of 
any  exquisite  delight  that  may  conceivably  be  inherent 
in  the  imaginative  contemplation  of  innocent  babes 
writhing  in  the  flames  of  hell. 

May  I  be  so  greatly  daring  as  to  close  this  chapter 
with  a  Httle  piece  of  autobiography?  When  I  was  first 
initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  religion  I 

I  "A  French  society,  called  the  Saint-Enfance  (1843),  has  spent  nearly 
80,000,000  francs  (£3,200,000)  in  a  half-century  to  ensure  the  baptism 
of  heathen  children  at  the  point  of  death;  China  has  been  the  chief  bene- 
ficiary of  this  puerile  extravagance.  "—Salomon  Reinach's  Orpheus, 
pp.  402-3  (New  York:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons). 


170  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

found  a  great  deal  to  perplex  me,  not  only  in  the 
Christian  theory  of  the  origin  of  evil  and  the  incredible 
Pauline  theology  relating  to  the  fall  and  redemption  of 
man,  but  also  in  the  character  attributed  to  Satan 
himself.^  It  seemed  clear  to  me  that  inasmuch  as 
there  are  in  mankind  infinite  degrees  of  virtue  and 
viciousness,  there  must  be  a  partition  of  infinite  thin- 
ness, morally  speaking,  between  those  who  have  just 
succeeded  in  scraping  •  themselves  into  heaven  and 
those  who  have  been  declared  just  bad  enough  for  hell. 
Thus  an  infinitesimal  difference  between  two  men  in 
respect  of  their  moral  natures  or  the  moral  quality 
of  their  actions  must  in  untold  multitudes  of  cases 
bring  about  the  eternal  misery  of  the  one  and  the  eternal 
bliss  of  the  other.  Even  the  hypothesis  of  purgatory 
does  not  afford  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  this 
peculiar  aspect  of  divine  justice.  There  can  be  no 
perceptible  moral  gap  between  the  most  wicked  joi  the 
sojourners  in  purgatory  and  the  least  wicked  of  the 
inhabitants  of  hell;  yet  the  rascals  of  purgatory  will 
sooner  or  later  ascend  to  the  region  of  eternal  happiness, 
while  hell's  least  ignoble  souls  are  for  ever  damned. 
This  seemed  to  my  youthful  mind  a  very  perplexing 
situation,  and,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  the  only  possible 
escape  from  it  was  either  to  deny  the  existence  of  hell 
altogether,  and  thereby  render  Satan  homeless,  or  to 
persuade  oneself  that  hell  was  really  a  place  (or  con- 
dition) of  comparative  comfort.  To  use  the  words  of 
the  Christian  apologist  imagined  by  Leslie  Stephen: 
*'Hell  shall  have  no  more  than  a  fine  equable  tempera- 
ture, really  good  for  the  constitution;  there  shall  be 
nobody  in  it  except  Judas  Iscariot  and  one  or  two  more; 

*  On  the  Pauline  theology  (as  it  is  held  at  the  present  day)  for  which 
"no  term  of  reprobation  and  contempt  can  be  too  strong,"  and  which 
possesses  "no  redeeming  feature  in  its  absurdity  and  cruelty, "  see  Sturt's 
Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  pp.  234  seq. 


Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen  171 

and  even  the  poor  Devil  shall  have  a  chance  if  he  will 
resolve  to  mend  his  ways."^ 

Again,  when  as  a  very  yoting  student  I  first  en- 
countered the  Christian  belief  in  the  eternal  punish- 
ment of  infants  who  died  unbaptised,  these  were  among 
the  whimsical  imaginings  that  took  shape  within  my 
heathen  mind.  So  far  as  I  could  gather,  the  decree  of 
damnation  for  the  unbaptised  infant  emanated  from 
God  or  was  sanctioned  by  him;  or  at  least  he,  being  by 
hypothesis  omnipotent,  could  have  rescinded  it  if  he 
woiild.  Thus  my  sympathies  went  out  least  of  all  to 
God,  who  was  merely  depriving  himself  of  the  services 
of  a  potential  angel;  a  great  deal  more  to  the  infant 
itself,  who  was  condemned  to  an  ** eternity  of  woe,'* 
as  the  Christian  hymnal  has  it'';  but  most  of  all  to  the 
Devil,  the  lord  of  hell,  whose  detestable  duty  it  would 
be  to  receive  the  little  damned  soul  and  assign  it  to  its 
appropriate  sphere  of  torture.  What  would  happen, 
I  wondered,  if  the  Devil  refused,  even  at  the  bidding 
of  Almighty  God,  to  find  a  place,  in  his  abode  of  eternal 
misery,  for  an  innocent  child?  What  if  he  said  to 
God:  "Take  away  your  victim!  My  hell  is  for  the 
wicked,  not  for  sinless  children.  Create  a  new  hell 
for  babies  if  you  will — you  are  omnipotent  and  can  do 
so ;  but  you  must  create  another  Satan  to  rule  it,  or  be 
yotn-self  its  lord."  God  might  be  angry,  but  as  he  had 
already  damned  the  Devil  and  presumably  had  no 
reserve  of  punishments  to  inflict  upon  him,  the  divine 
wrath  would  spend  itself  in  vain.  Possibly  the  wretched 
infant,  rejected  by  both  God  and  Satan,  and  left  to 
wander  aimlessly  in  the  interstellar  spaces,  might,  after 
the  lapse  of  untold  ages  arrive  by  some  happy  chance  at 
the  portals  of  heaven.     Even  then  the  Almighty  might 

*  An  Agnostic's  Apology,  p.  42  (R.P.A.  Reprint). 
=*  Hymns,  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  289,  st.  4. 


172  Hell  and  the  Damnation  of  Heathen 

be  stem  as  ever,  and  pitilessly  order  the  gates  to  be 
locked  and  barred;  but  perhaps  the  doorkeeper  Peter, 
not  yet  degenerated  to  sycophantic  angelhood,  might 
still  be  human  enough  to  accept  the  bribe  of  a  baby's 
smile. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PRAYER,   FAITH,   AND  TELEPATHY 

ONE  of  the  many  religious  questions  on  which  we 
Chinese  find  missionaries  at  variance  among 
themselves  and  on  which  we  have  not  succeeded  in  ob- 
taining a  clear  and  imequivocal  statement  of  Christian 
teaching,  is  the  question  of  Prayer. 

"God  answers  prayer."  This  seems  clear  and  suc- 
cinct enough  for  anybody;  and  so  it  would  be  if  all 
three  terms  of  the  proposition  were  clearly  defined. 
Let  me  explain  at  the  outset  that  I  am  so  far  from 
denying  what  is  called  the  efficacy  of  prayer  that  I 
cannot  even  imagine  such  a  denial  being  made  in 
sincerity  by  any  thoughtful  person.  At  first  sight  the 
question  *'Have  prayers  any  efficacy?"  might  seem  to 
be  merely  another  way  of  saying  ''Does  God  answer 
the  prayers  of  those  who  pray  to  him?"  But  the  two 
questions  are  really  quite  distinct;  and  the  man  who 
ventured  to  give  a  negative  or  agnostic  reply  to  the 
second,  might  without  any  inconsistency  answer  the 
first  in  the  affirmative. 

To  admit  that  prayer  is  or  may  be  efficacious,  by  no 
means  implies  a  belief  that  a  personal  God  (a  God  who 
made  man  in  his  own  image)  listens  to  the  petitions  of  his 
worshippers  and  grants  the  boons  asked  for  by  causing 
something  to  happen  which  would  not  have  happened 
if  the  prayers  had  not  been  uttered.    If,  indeed,  it  be 

173 


174         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

further  granted  (as  I  for  one  am  fully  prepared  to 
grant)  that  a  prayer  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  sometimes 
followed  by  events  which  would  not  have  occurred  if 
there  had  been  no  prayer,  there  is  nothing  even  in 
this  admission  that  would  necessarily  meet  with  dis- 
sent from  agnostic  or  atheist.  I  must  try  and  make 
this  position  clear.  A  devout  Christian  mother,  let 
us  say,  is  watching  at  the  bedside  of  her  child,  who  is 
believed  to  be  dying.  In  the  intervals  of  nursing  she 
prays  earnestly  to  God  that  her  child  may  not  be  taken 
from  her;  and  after  a  long  and  dangerous  illness  the 
child  at  last  recovers.  The  doctor,  knowing  it  had 
been  a  case  of  ''touch  and  go,"  asserts  that  the  child 
owes  its  life  to  the  devoted  nursing  of  the  mother;  the 
mother,  on  the  other  hand,  is  positive  that  its  recovery 
was  the  outcome  of  her  prayers.  Now  I  do  not  think 
that  any  one — even  if  he  rejects  as  inconclusive  the 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  personal  God — will  have 
any  difficulty  in  admitting,  after  a  little  consideration, 
that  doctor  and  mother  may  both  be  equally  right. 
While  the  mother  was  engaged  in  prayer  she,  as  a 
Christian,  firmly  believed  that  her  prayer  was  listened 
to  by  the  God  to  whom  it  was  addressed ;  and  her  faith 
in  God's  power  and  goodness  gave  her  the  further 
assurance  that  he  was  able  to  preserve  her  child's  life. 
She  rises  from  her  knees  comforted,  fortified,  and  with 
renewed  cheerfulness,  and  is  able  to  devote  herself  to 
the  nursing  of  her  child  even  more  earnestly  and  suc- 
cessfully than  before.  Had  she  not  prayed,  had  she  had 
no  faith,  her  own  health  might  have  broken  down  and 
the  child  might  have  died  through  lack  of  a  mother's 
care;  as  it  is,  her  faith  gives  her  hope,  the  joy  that  hope 
brings  with  it  adds  new  strength  and  energy  to  her 
physical  frame,  and  the  child  lives.  I  can  well  imagine 
an  earnest  Christian  asking  with  some  indignation  what 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy  175 

further  proof  is  needed  that  God  grants  the  prayers  of 
his  people. 

The  admitted  facts  [he  may  say]  are  that  the  woman 
prayed  for  her  child's  life;  that  its  Hfe  was  spared;  and  that 
if  she  had  not  prayed  it  would  have  died.  What  more  do 
you  want?  What  right  have  we  to  criticise  God's  methods 
because  they  seem  capable  of  a  non-miraculous  explana- 
tion? The  laws  of  the  universe  are  God's  laws;  is  God  to 
be  debarred  from  acting  through  the  laws  of  which  he  him- 
self is  the  author?^ 

This  seems  plausible  enough  until  we  perceive  that 
we  can  really  trace  the  concatenation  of  causes  no 
farther  back  than  to  the  mother' s  faith.  Faith  in  what? 
When  we  look  for  an  answer  to  that  question  we  are 
merely  groping  among  hypotheses.  God  may  or  may 
not  be  enthroned  above  it  all ;  our  chain  does  not  reach, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  to  the  feet  of  God.  The  mother 
whose  case  we  are  considering  had  faith  in  the  Christian 
God,  and  therefore  she  prayed  to  him  and  to  no  other. 
Had  she  been  a  native  of  South-eastern  Asia  she  might 
have  prayed  to  Buddha,  for  the  average  Buddhist  does 
pray,  in  spite  of  his  theoretical  acceptance  of  the  theory 
of  inexorable  law.  Had  she  been  a  North-American 
Indian  she  might  have  prayed  to  Wohkonda,  the  Master 
of  Life;  as  a  Chinese,  she  might  have  prayed  to  the 
local  fu-ti  or  to  Kuan-yin,  or  to  the  deity  who  presided 

'  Professor  Sanday,  in  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Recent  Research,  remarks 
that  "an  act  is  no  less  divine  because  it  is  fundamentally  according  to 
law."  Quite  true,  as  one  of  his  critics  observes,  "but  does  not  such  a 
reply  involve  this  objection?  To  speak  of  a  miracle  as  a  'divine  act' 
carries  the  inference  that  an  ordinary  occurrence  is  not  divine"  (W. 
Jones  Davies  in  The  Hihhert  Journal,  July,  1908,  p.  938).  And  similarly 
we  may  say:  If  every  occurrence  is  divine,  then  why  draw  distinctions 
between  one  occurrence  and  another?  Why  say,  "Here  we  trace  God's 
finger, "  if  God's  finger  is  acknowledged  to  be  in  everything? 


176         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

over  the  particular  disease  from  which  her  child  was 
suffering;  as  an  ancient  Egyptian  she  might  have  prayed 
to  Amon  or  to  Osiris;  as  a  Roman,  to  ^sculapius;  as  a 
Moslem,  to  the  God  revealed  by  Mohammed;  as  a 
native  of  Vedic  India,  to  Varuna  or  Agni;  as  a  Zoroas- 
trian,  to  Ahuramazda;  as  a  Hottentot,  to  Tsui-goa;  as  an 
ancient  Mexican,  to  Pachamac':  and  we  have  no  proof 
whatever  that  so  far  as  the  child's  restoration  to  health 
was  concerned  the  Christian  prayer  was  of  any  greater 
efficacy  than  any  heathen  prayer  would  have  been  if 
uttered  in  equally  earnest  faith. 

The  Papists  on  the  one  side  [remarked  the  good  Pro- 
testant Robert  Burton]  stiffly  maintain  how  many  melan- 
choly, mad,  demoniacal  persons  are  daily  cured  at  St. 
Anthony's  Church  in  Padua,  at  St.  Vitus's  in  Germany, 
by  our  Lady  of  Loretto  in  Italy,  our  Lady  of  Sichem  in  the 
Low  Countries.  .  .  .  They  have  a  proper  saint  for  every 
peculiar  infirmity:  for  poison,  gout,  agues,  Petronella;  St. 
Romanus  for  such  as  are  possessed;  Valentine  for  the 
falling  sickness;  St.  Vitus  for  madmen,  etc.  .  .  .  Jasper 
Belga,  a  Jesuit,  cured  a  mad  woman  by  hanging  St.  John's 
Gospel  about  her  neck,  and  many  such.  .  .  .  ^sculapius 
of  old,  that  counterfeit  god,  did  as  many  famous  cures ;  his 
temple  (as  Strabo  relates)  was  daily  full  of  patients,  and  as 
many  several  tables,  inscriptions,  pendants,  donaries,  etc., 
to  be  seen  in  his  church,  as  at  this  day  at  our  Lady  of 
Loretto's  in  Italy.  .  .  .  The  same  Jupiter  and  those  bad 
angels  are  now  worshipped  and  adored  by  the  name  of  St. 
Sebastian,  Barbara,  etc.  Christopher  and  George  are 
come  in  their  places.  Our  Lady  succeeds  Venus,  as  they 
use  her  in  many  offices;  the  rest  are  otherwise  supplied, 
as  Lavater  writes,  and  so  they  are  deluded."^ 

Medical  men  nowadays  fully  recognise  the  curative 

1  See  Max  Muller's  Last  Essays  (Second  Series),  pp.  36  seq, 

2  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  pt.  ii.,  sec.  i.,  mem.  iii. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         177 

value  of  faith,  and  perhaps  the  majority  of  them  would 
whisper  that  faith  in  what  or  in  whom  was  a  matter  of 
minor  consequence.  The  object  of  faith  may  be  a 
lucky  pebble,  or  the  touch  of  a  king's  finger,  or  a  piece 
of  wood  purporting  to  be  a  portion  of  the  ''true  Cross,  '* 
or  the  holy  water  at  Lourdes,  or  a  holy  coat,  or  Mrs. 
Eddy's  pseudo-metaphysics,  or  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas 
of  Canterbury,  or  the  relics  of  Ti-tsang  Bodhisatva  at 
Chiu-hua-shan  in  China :  the  only  thing  that  is  really  of 
consequence  seems  to  be  the  sincerity  of  the  faith. 
*  *  Thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole, ' '  said  Jesus.  ^  Many 
are  apt  to  assume  when  they  read  the  ''faith"  passages 
in  the  gospel  that  it  was  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God 
■ — in  the  divinity  of  Jesus — that  was  meant ;  whereas  all 
that  was  signified  seems  to  have  been  a  belief  in  Jesus' 
power  to  heal  bodily  disease.  It  is  admitted  that  Jesus 
was  not  the  only  remarkable  healer  of  his  time,  indeed  he 
himself  added  to  the  number  of  faith-healers^;  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  his  patients,  even  after  they 
had  been  restored  to  health  by  his  touch,  were  converted 
to  a  belief  in  his  Godhead.  ^ 

^  For  further  evidence  of  the  great  stress  laid  by  Jesus  on  faith  as  faith, 
see  Matt,  xxi.,  21-2;  Luke  xvii.,  6. 

=>  See  Matt,  x.,  i,  8. 

3  "When  Jesus  asked  men  to  have  faith  in  him  he  was  not  requiring 
their  assent  to  a  Christological  creed,"  etc.  (Dr.  Henry  Goodwin 
Smith,  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  Oct.,  1907,  pp.  142  seq.).  Prof.  Estlin 
Carpenter  {First  Three  Gospels)  says:  "The  real  force  which  worked 
the  patient's  cure  dwelt  in  his  own  mind;  the  power  of  Jesus  lay  in  the 
potency  of  his  personality  to  evoke  this  force. "  Cf.  also  S.  J.  Case,  who 
in  his  review  of  Warschauer's  Jesus :  Seveji  Questions,  remarks  that  Jesus' 
"power  to  heal  did  not  differ  in  kind  from  that  which  other  good  men  of 
his  day  possessed,  and  was  dependent  for  its  effect  upon  the  patient's 
own  mental  attitude"  {American  Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1909,  p.  460). 
Cf.  also  Dr.  A.  T.  Schofield's  article  on  "Spiritual  Healing"  in  The  Con- 
temporary Review,  March,  1909,  pp.  298-304.  "Of  course,"  he  says, 
"  the  first  idea  in  all  ages  and  in  all  countries  has  always  been  that  it  is 
the  object  of  faith  that  effects  the  cure;  in  short,  that  it  is  objective  and 


178         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

Leuba  is  undoubtedly  right  [says  Prof.  William  James] 
in  contending  that  the  conceptual  belief  about  Christ's 
work,  although  so  often  efficacious  and  antecedent,  is 
really  accessory  and  non-essential,  and  that  the  "joyous 
conviction"  can  also  come  by  far  other  channels  than  this 
conception.  It  is  to  the  joyous  conviction  itself,  the 
assurance  that  all  is  well  with  one,  that  he  would  give  the 
name  of  faith  par  excellence,^  The  name  of  "faith-state," 
by  which  Prof.  Leuba  designates  it,  is  a  good  one  [says 
Dr.  James  in  another  place].  It  is  a  biological  as  well  as 
a  psychological  condition,  and  Tolstoy  is  absolutely  ac- 
curate in  classing  faith  among  the  forces  by  which  men 
live.     The  total  absence  of  it,  anhedonia,  means  collapse."^ 

The  recognition  of  the  reality  of  faith-cures  is  nothing 
new.  The  author  of  the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  quotes 
a  learned  opinion  to  the  effect  that  doctors  cannot  hope 
to  cure  their  patients  unless  "with  a  true  faith  they  call 
upon  God,  and  teach  their  patients  to  do  the  like."^ 
Nowadays  most  doctors  leave  the  praying  to  the  patient 
and  to  the  parson;  but  few  of  them  would  deny  that  in 
certain  circumstances  and  in  respect  of  certain  types  of 
disease  faithful  prayer  may  be  of  far  more  value  than 
drugs.  Burton  quotes  a  piece  of  advice,  to  the  effect 
that  sick  persons  should  first  of  all  pray  to  God  **with 

not  subjective;  but  when  it  is  carefully  noted  that  however  many  and 
various  are  the  objects  in  which  faith  is  reposed  the  cures  are  always  the 
same,  it  is  clear  that  the  object  cannot  be  the  active  agency.  For  in- 
stance, equally  credible  cures  are  recorded  from  faith  in  idols,  fetishes, 
charms,  repulsive  objects,  or  powders  or  draughts;  apparatus  such  as  a 
thermometer  or  special  bits  of  wood  and  iron;  or  in  the  vision  at  Lourdes, 
or  the  holy  coat  of  Treves,  or  in  relics  of  all  sorts;  or  in  kings  or  holy  men, 
or  in  trees,  flowers,  fruits;  or  in  impostors  such  as  Dowie,  or  in  systems  of 
faith,  or  in  the  gods  of  Greece  or  Egypt;  or  in  a  thousand  other  objects, 
in  themselves  powerless." 

1  The  Varieties  oj  Religious  Experience,  pp.  246-7  (loth  impr.;  Long 
mans,  1904). 

2  Op.  ciL,  p.  505. 

3  Burton's  Anat.  of  MeL,  pt.  ii.,  sect,  i.,  mem.  iii. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         179 

all  submission  and  penitency, "  then  confess  their  sins, 
and  finally  take  some  medicine.  ^ 

No  man  who  has  studied  history  [says  Huxley]  or 
even  attended  to  the  occurrences  of  everyday  Hfe,  can 
doubt  the  enormous  practical  value  of  trust  and  faith;  but 
as  Httle  will  he  be  inclined  to  deny  that  this  practical  value 
has  not  the  least  relation  to  the  reality  of  the  objects  of  that 
trust  and  faith.  In  examples  of  patient  constancy  of  faith 
and  of  unswerving  trust,  the  ''Acta  Martyrum,"  do  not 
excel  the  annals  of  Babism.^ 

The  fact  that  prayer  is  far  from  being  confined  to 
Christianity  to-day,  and  formed  an  important  part  of 
the  religious  lives  of  people  who  lived  ages  before  Christ 
was  bom,  is  not  allowed  to  perplex  the  mind  of  the 
devout  Christian.  The  imiversality  of  prayer,  he  points 
out,  is  one  of  the  surest  proofs  of  its  efficacy,  for  people 
do  not  persist  in  doing  things  that  experience  shows  to 
be  of  no  avail.  ^  Here  I  find  nothing  to  cavil  at,  for  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  is  not  in  dispute.  But  he  will  very 
likely  go  on  to  assert  that  prayers  addressed  by  heathen 
worshippers  to  stocks  and  stones  are  answered  (when 
they  have  any  effect  at  all)  only  by  the  One  God  re- 
vealed by  Judaism  and  Christ,  the  All-Father  who  be- 
stows a  share  of  his  love  and  pity  even  on  those  who 
deny  his  name.  Thus  here  we  have  a  definite  proof, 
says  the  Christian  triimiphantly,  that  *' God's  in  his 
heaven,  all  *s  right  with  the  world!" 

Well,  but  if  God  answers  heathen  prayers  in  the  same 
manner  as  he  answers  Christian  prayers  there  ceases  to 

^Burton's  Anat.  of  Mel.,  pt.  ii.,  sect,  i.,  mem.  iii. 

2  Science  and  Christian  Tradition  (Eversley  ed.),  p.  214.  (Italics  not 
in  original.) 

3  Surely,  says  Seneca,  we  men  would  not  agree  in  addressing  prayers 
to  "surda  numina  et  inefficaces  deos"  unless  we  found  by  experience 
that  we  derived  benefit  from  such  prayers  {Ben.,  iv.,  4,  i). 


i8o         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

be  any  reason — so  far  as  the  matter  of  prayer  is  con- 
cerned— why  the  idolaters  should  be  coaxed  away  from 
their  stocks  and  stones.  If  they  were  to  lose  faith  in 
their  "idols"  and  were  persuaded  to  give  an  intellect- 
ual assent  to  one  of  the  numerous  forms  of  Christianity, 
they  might  come  to  feel,  in  time,  that  they  had  lost 
more  than  they  had  gained  by  the  exchange.  The 
*' faith-state, "  once  destroyed,  does  not  easily  re-create 
itself  imder  new  conditions.  Setting  this  question  aside 
as  not  strictly  relevant,  what  is  to  be  said  when  we  hear 
of  favourable  responses  being  granted  not  only  to  the 
prayers  of  the  heathen,  but  also  to  those  of  notorious 
evil-doers,  and  even  to  prayers  for  help  and  protection 
in  the  commission  of  actual  crime?  Does  this  support 
the  view  that  a  personal  God,  all-good,  all-powerful,  and 
omniscient,  is  the  direct  dispenser  of  the  benefits  derived 
from  prayer? 

We  make  nothing  [said  the  Lord  of  Montaigne]  of 
invoking  God's  assistance  in  our  vices,  and  inviting  him 
into  our  unjust  designs:  ''quae  nisi  seductis  nequeas  com- 
mittere  divis";  the  covetous  man  prays  for  the  conservation 
of  his  vain  and  superfluous  riches;  the  ambitious  for  victory 
and  the  good  conduct  of  his  fortune;  the  thief  calls  him  to 
his  assistance,  to  deliver  him  from  the  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties that  obstruct  his  wicked  designs,  or  returns  him 
thanks  for  the  facility  he  has  met  with  in  cutting  a  man's 
throat;  at  the  door  of  the  house  men  are  going  to  storm  or 
break  into  by  force  of  a  petard,  they  fall  to  prayers  for 
success,  their  intentions  and  hopes  full  of  cruelty,  avarice, 
and  lust.^ 

This  matter  might  lead  us  into  some  strange  by-paths 
of  thought  if  we  had  space  to  pursue  it.  Human  nature 
is  a  marvellously  complex  thing,  and  I  suppose  there  is 

'  Montaigne's  Essays:  "Of  Prayers." 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy  i8i 

no  doubt  that  many  persons  who  commit  criminal  acts 
are  very  far  from  being  conscious  of  their  own  iniquity 
or  from  regarding  themselves  as  Hmbs  of  Satan.  The 
housebreaker  may  feel  that  he  is  avenging  the  cause  of 
the  "higher  righteousness/*  or  that  he  is  warring  against 
an  unjust  and  corrupt  social  system,  or  that  the  motives 
which  impel  him  to  the  defiance  of  mundane  laws  are 
somehow  justifiable  in  the  sight  of  God  if  not  in  the 
sight  of  man.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  even 
murderers  have  sometimes  acted  with  complete  confi- 
dence in  their  own  rectitude,  and  have  gone  to  the  scaf- 
fold with  the  belief  that  they  are  being  foully  wronged. 
I  do  not  refer  only  to  assassins  who  in  times  of  political 
unrest  have  been  led  into  crime  through  the  promptings 
of  a  perverted  patriotism;  I  would  include  many  per- 
petrators of  the  ordinary  murders  that  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  newspaper-reader  or  juryman  can  have  been 
inspired  only  by  the  most  sordid  or  detestable  of  motives. 
We  must  allow,  I  think,  that  even  robbers  and  cut- 
throats are  not  necessarily  acting  a  hypocritical  part  if — 
as  still  happens  in  the  more  backward  and  superstitious 
of  Christian  as  well  as  of  heathen  lands — they  bend  the 
knee  in  prayer  and  ask  God,  or  a  favourite  saint,  to 
bless  their  deeds  of  violence.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
criminals  should  be  religious,  for  human  nature  is  full 
of  inconsistencies.  What  seems  truly  astonishing — 
on  the  assumption  that  the  Christian  God  alone  is 
directly  responsible  for  the  fruits  of  prayer — is  that  the 
praying  criminal  seems  to  derive  as  much  benefit  from 
his  impious  petitions  to  the  Deity  as  his  law-abiding 
neighbour  derives  from  prayers  uttered  in  equally  strong 
faith  and  with  more  innocent  intent.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  Spanish  or  Italian  brigand  who 
kneels  before  the  crucifix  by  the  wayside  and  asks  for 
favour  and  protection  from  God  or  his  patron  saint  does 


1 82         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

actually — like  the  mother  who  prayed  for  her  sick  child 
— derive  strength  and  confidence  from  the  act  of  prayer, 
and  that  he  is  more  Hkely  to  bring  off  his  next  coup  with 
success  than  if  he  had  not  prayed.  If  you  insist  that  it 
is  through  the  direct  action  of  a  pitiful  God  that  the 
mother  gains  new  cheerfulness  and  hope  from  her  trust- 
ful prayers,  will  you  also  admit  that  it  is  by  thedirect 
action  of  God  that  the  brigand  gains  new  vigour  and 
self-confidence  in  the  prosecution  of  his  schemes  of 
pillage  or  murder? 

A  theory  whereby  we  may,  if  we  will,  account  for 
the  efficacy  of  certain  types  of  prayer  without  throwing 
any  direct  responsibihty  on  God  or  even  necessarily 
postulating  his  existence,  is  to  be  found  among  the  sug- 
gestions of  that  attractive  and  daring  thinker  Frederick 
Myers,  whose  name  will  always  be  green  in  the  memory 
of  those  who  realise  the  supreme  importance,  to  hu- 
manity, of  the  psychical  studies  in  which  he  was  so 
deeply  interested.  This  is  no  place  to  discuss  at  length 
the  theory  of  the  subliminal  consciousness,  with  which 
no  doubt  most  of  my  Western  readers  are  familiar,  and 
which  finds — perhaps  I  may  venture  to  say — all  the 
readier  acceptance  among  Orientals  because  it  merely 
puts  into  fairly  definite  shape  a  portion  of  a  theory  in 
which  for  ages  past  we  have  more  or  less  expHcitly  be- 
lieved. Myers,  indeed,  seemed  anxious  to  avoid  en- 
tangling himself  in  the  meshes  of  pantheism;  but  his 
**  infinite  life,"^  in  which  every  human  personality  has 
its  original  home  and  to  which  every  individual  soul 
may  imder  certain  conditions  withdraw  itself  for  the 
purpose  of  imbibing  fresh  draughts  of  energy,  is  cer- 
tainly suggestive  of  the  ''world-soul"  of  Eastern  pan- 
theistic philosophy. 

According  to  Myers — and  he  is  supported  by  a  large 
^  See  Human  Personality,  vol.  ii.,  p.  313,  and  many  other  passages. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         183 

amount  of  psychological  and  pathological  evidence — 
the  conscious  or  ^'supraHminal"  Self  is  not  the  only 
Self,  and  not  the  most  important  Self,  that  we  possess. 

There  exists,  [he  says]  a  more  comprehensive  conscious- 
ness, a  profounder  faculty,  which  for  the  most  part  remains 
potential  only  so  far  as  regards  the  life  of  earth,  but  from 
which  the  consciousness  and  the  faculty  of  earth-life  are 
mere  selections,  and  which  reasserts  itself  in  its  plenitude 
after  the  liberating  change  of  death. ^ 

In  more  technical  language  he  maintains  the  same  view 
thus: 

I  regard  each  man  as  at  once  profoundly  unitary  and 
almost  infinitely  composite,  as  inheriting  from  earthly 
ancestors  a  multiplex  and  *' colonial"  organism— polyzoic 
and  perhaps  poly  psychic  in  an  extreme  degree;  but  also 
as  ruling  and  unifying  that  organism  by  a  soul  or  spirit 
absolutely  beyond  our  present  analysis — a  soul  which  has 
originated  in  a  spiritual  or  metethereal  environment;  which 
even  while  embodied  subsists  in  that  environment;  and 
which  will  still  subsist  therein  after  the  body*s  decay.  ^ 

We  need  not  here  consider  the  question  of  whether 
Myers  was  justified  in  supposing  that  the  available 
evidence  proved  the  individual's  survival  of  bodily 
death  3;  the  point  that  more  immediately  concerns  us 

»  Human  Personality,  vol.  i.,  p.  12. 

» Ihid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  34. 

3  There  have  been,  of  course,  numerous  criticisms  of  the  theories  advo- 
cated by  Myers,  especially  as  regards  their  bearing  on  the  "life  after 
death."  Not  the  least  interesting  observations  are  those  of  R.  B. 
Arnold,  in  his  Scientific  Fact  and  Metaphysical  Reality,  pp.  334  seg^. 
(Macmillan  &  Co.,  1904).  He  admits  the  importance  of  the  evidence 
collected  by  Myers  and  his  colleagues,  but  says  that  "the  explanatory 
reasoning  was  somewhat  vitiated  by  the  treatment  of  the  'subconscious 
self '  as  though  it  were  some  separate  type  of  existence,  somewhere  away 
in  '  infinity.'     ,  ,  ,    The  subconscious  has  been  well  expressed  as  the 


i84         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

is  the  possibility  that  human  personality  not  only  far 
transcends  the  utmost  limits  of  the  normal  consciousness, 
but  may  even  be  connected,  through  the  medium  of  the 
unplumbed  depths  of  the  subconscious  self,  with  the 
ultimate  reality,  the  infinite  life,  the  world-soul  in  which 
(it  may  be)  we  all  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. 
Many  of  the  phenomena  relating  to  telepathy,  tele- 
assthesia,  hypnotic  and  ordinary  sleep,  disintegration  of 
personality,  sensory  automatism,  self-suggestion,  trance, 
ecstasy,  so-called  devil-possession,  and  some  of  the 
experiences  connected  with  the  ''inspirations"  of  genius 
and  the  visions  of  mysticism — these  and  other  peculiari- 
ties of  the  human  organism  can  best  be  explained, 
according  to  Myers  and  his  colleagues  and  successors, 
on  the  hypothesis  that  under  exceptional  or  more  or  less 
abnormal  conditions  the  subliminal  faculties — that  is, 
the  faculties  that  usually  remain  helow  the  threshold 
of  normal  consciousness — may  assume  control,  and  even 

neural  mechanised  background  of  consciousness.  .  .  .  Thus  the  sub- 
conscious self  is  not  an  entity  somewhere  away  in  the  stars,  but  it  is  only 
postulated  to  explain  the  full  working  of  mind,  matter,  and  ether,  in- 
cluding— and  in  their  ultimate  reality  transcending — the  '  ordinary  * 
activities  of  our  organisms,  as  is  possibly  already  indicated  in  reported 
telepathy,"  etc.  From  another  point  of  view,  the  criticisms  of 
Prof.  W.  R.  Inge  {Personal  Idealism  and  Mysticism,  pp.  181-3)  deserve 
attention.  He  points  out,  as  others  have  done,  the  unphilosophical  atti- 
tude of  the  "individualist"  who  "can  hardly  think  of  immortality  except 
as  survival  in  time  (time  being  to  him  absolutely  real)."  But  the  un- 
philosophical Christian's  attitude  toward  the  eschatological  problems  of 
his  own  faith  are,  after  all,  cast  in  a  very  similar  mould.  The  man-in- 
the-street,  whether  the  street  and  the  man  be  in  China  or  in  Europe,  is 
either  totally  ignorant  of,  or  has  a  hearty  contempt  for,  the  theories  of  a 
Berkeley  or  a  Kant.  He  will  kick  a  lamp-post  and  expect  to  be  congratu- 
lated on  having  achieved  a  brilliant  refutation  of  idealism.  As  for 
space  and  time,  he  is  just  as  certain  that  they  are  "real"  as  he  is  of  the 
existence  of  the  lamp-post.  At  the  same  time  it  would  not  be  difficult 
to  show  that  such  arguments  as  those  used  by  Dr.  Inge  by  no  means 
stultify  the  survival  theory  propounded  by  Myers  in  his  great  work 
on  Human  Personality. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         185 

effect  a  temporary  effacement,  of  the  supraliminal  con- 
sciousness of  ordinary  life.  It  is  further  supposed  that 
man  may,  by  an  act  of  combined  faith  and  will  dive 
into  his  own  subliminal  consciousness  and  refresh  him- 
self in  its  life-giving  waters,  undergoing  thereby  a  pro- 
cess of  purification  and  re-invigoration  that  renders 
him  far  better  able  than  before  to  face  the  troubles  and 
perplexities  of  daily  life.  It  is  almost  a  necessary  corol- 
lary of  this  theory  that  the  act  of  prayer,  provided  it  is 
faithful  and  sincere,  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  most 
effective  methods  of  immersing  the  dusty  and  travel- 
stained  Self  of  ordinary  consciousness  in  the  clear  and 
sparkling  waves  of  the  subliminal  ocean.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising, then,  that  in  spite  of  the  frowns  of  many  ortho- 
dox theologians,  who  are  not  disposed  to  look  with 
favour  on  anything  that  is  suggestive  of  Spiritualism, 
many  good  Christians  have  eagerly  seized  upon  this 
theory  as  admirably  capable  of  effecting  a  reconcilia- 
tion, in  respect  of  the  important  matter  of  prayer,  be- 
tween religion  and  science;  and  they  do  so  with  the 
more  confidence  when  they  know  that  on  their  side  are 
ranged  such  prominent  leaders  of  modem  religious 
and  scientific  thought  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Adolf  Har- 
nack,^  and  the  late  Dr.  James.    Thus  we  need  not 

^  Those  who  are  surprised  at  the  inclusion  of  the  name  of  Prof.  Har- 
nack  in  this  list  may  perhaps  be  reminded  of  the  following  passage  which 
.  occurs  in  the  volume  of  lectures  entitled  What  is  Christianity?  (Eng. 
trans.,  pp.  28-9).  "Although  the  order  of  Nature  be  inviolable,  we  are 
not  yet  by  any  means  acquainted  with  all  the  forces  working  in  it  and 
acting  reciprocally  with  other  forces.  Our  acquaintance  even  with  the 
forces  inherent  in  matter,  and  with  the  field  of  their  action,  is  incomplete ; 
while  of  psychic  forces  we  know  very  much  less.  We  see  that  a  strong 
will  and  a  firm  faith  exert  an  influence  upon  the  Hfe  of  the  body,  and  pro- 
duce phenomena  which  strike  us  as  marvellous.  Has  any  one  ever  yet 
drawn  any  sure  line  between  the  spheres  of  the  possible  and  the  actual? 
Who  can  say  how  far  the  influence  of  soul  upon  soul  and  of  soul  upon 
body  reaches?     No  one.     Who  can  still  maintain  that  any  extraordinary 


i86         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy- 
be  surprised  to  find  the  following  passage  in  a  sermon 
preached  by  the  Rev.  R.  F.  Horton,  D.D.,  at  a  great 
Missionary  Conference  held  at  Liverpool  in  January, 
1908; 

In  the  act  of  prayer  [he  says]  you  dive  down  into  what 
modern  philosophers  sometimes  call  the  subliminal  self — 
that  is  to  say,  that  every  self  is  made  up  of  a  certain  con- 
sciousness which  is  conscious,  and  of  a  great  deal  of  potential 
consciousness  which  is  not  for  the  moment  conscious  at  all. 
The  little  bit  of  consciousness  that  is  conscious  at  the  mo- 
ment is  like  the  cork  upon  the  surface  of  the  sea  that  indi- 
cates the  great  net  that  goes  down  into  the  depths  below. 
Now  in  the  act  of  prayer,  if  it  is  real  prayer,  the  wonderful 
thing  is  that  you  explore  that  subliminal  consciousness. 
You  get  really  down  into  yourself,  and  what  happens  there 
is  very  remarkable.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  that  the  one 
thing  which  has  been  established  by  psychological  research 
is  the  reaHty  of  telepathic  communication.  When  you  get 
down  beneath  the  surface  of  your  own  self — ^it  is  a  most 
mysterious  truth — you  come  into  contact  with  other  people 
there;  you  touch  the  wires  of  communication  which  connect 
you  with  people  far  away — you  actually  influence  the 
thought  and  the  feelings  of  persons  on  the  other  side  of 
the  globe.     It  is  one  of  the  mysterious  facts  of  modern 

phenomenon  that  may  appear  in  this  domain  is  entirely  based  on  error 
and  delusion?  Miracles,  it  is  true,  do  not  happen;  but  of  the  marvellous 
and  the  inexplicable  there  is  no  lack.  In  our  present  state  of  knowledge 
we  have  become  more  careful,  more  hesitating  in  our  judgment,  in  regard 
to  the  stories  of  the  miraculous  which  we  have  received  from  antiquity. 
That  the  earth  in  its  course  stood  still;  that  a  she-ass  spoke;  that  a  storm 
was  quieted  by  a  word,  we  do  not  believe,  and  we  shall  never  again  believe; 
but  that  the  lame  walked,  and  the  blind  saw,  and  the  deaf  heard,  will 
not  be  so  summarily  dismissed  as  an  illusion.  **  It  may  be  mentioned, 
by  the  way,  that  many  Christian  missionaries  are  still  assuring  unlet- 
tered Chinese  audiences  that  the  very  things  which  Hamack  says  "we 
do  not  believe,  and  we  shall  never  again  believe, "  did,  as  a  matter  of  his- 
toric fact,  take  place.  This  is  one  of  the  principal  justifications  for  the 
present  Appeal. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         187 

psychology,  but  it  is  indisputable;  and  it  reveals  the  truth, 
which  we  have  held  all  along,  that  by  praying  for  people 
we  directly  help  them;  that  if  you  give  yourself  to  prayer 
for  a  person,  we  will  say,  in  the  mission-field,  the  very  act 
of  prayer  brings  you  to  the  point  where  telepathic  com- 
munication is  carried  right  through  to  the  soul  far  away; 
and  that  fact,  which  is  familiar  to  us  all,  is  becoming  a 
scientific  fact,  a  psychological  fact  established  by  inquiry, 
experiment,  and  verification.^ 

Now  with  the  substance  of  this  interesting  and  clearly 
expressed  passage  many  of  us  will  hesitate  to  disagree. 
There  are  non-Christians  who  could  assent  to  its  pro- 
positions (perhaps  expressed  in  slightly  different  phrase- 
ology) just  as  readily  as  Christians,  for  (as  should  be 
carefully  noted)  they  are  dependent  on  no  theological 
dogmas  or  formulated  religious  system  whatsoever.  If 
there  really  be  such  a  thing  as  telepathy  (and  the  evi- 
dence in  its  favour  is  now  regarded  by  many  competent 
judges  as  conclusive),  scientific  investigators  will  cer- 
tainly drag  it,  sooner  or  later,  out  of  the  obscurity  in 
which  it  has  hitherto  lurked  and  oblige  it  to  undergo 
as  patient  and  thorough  an  examination  as  any  other 
natural  law  or  process  cognisable  by  science.  But  the 
question  of  the  existence  of  a  God  or  of  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  this  or  that  system  of  religious  doctrine  is 
not  necessarily  affected  by  the  establishment  of  the 
truth  of  telepathy.  Moreover,  as  the  Rev.  R.  F.  Horton 
must  have  well  known,  his  view  that  prayer  acts 
telepathetically  does  not  yet  meet  with  the  universal 
acceptance  of  theological  experts.  Some  authorities 
condemn  in  no  measured  terms  the  proposed  alliance 
between  religion  and  the  philosophy  of  the  subconscious, 

*  Prayer  and  the  Divine  Source  of  Power  (London:  Student  Volunteer 
Missionary  Union,  Chancery  Lane). 


1 88         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

on  the  ground  that  it  implies  a  reversion  to  primitive 
modes  of  religious  thought  which  we  have  long  out- 
grown. 

Extremes  meet  [writes  a  well-known  theologian] 
when  the  objective  efficacy  of  prayer  is  explained  and 
defended  by  reference  to  the  supposed  connection  of  mind 
with  mind,  and  of  the  human  mind  with  God,  through  the 
subconscious.  If  telepathy  be  true,  then  of  course  my 
prayer  for  another  may  produce  effects  in  his  mind  and 
body.  Myers's  speculation  concerning  a  possible  medium 
for  telepathic  vibrations  now  reappears  as  an  assertion 
that  prayer  recognises  ''waves  of  psychic  force."  ..." 
The  warm  idealism,  and  even  the  practical  insight,  that 
sometimes  accompany  such  crude  mythology,  do  not  lessen 
its  crudity.  .  .  .  But,  in  any  case,  the  appeal  to  the  sub- 
conscious in  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer  is  another 
instance  of  reversion  toward  the  earHest  and  crudest 
religious  philosophy.^ 

For  my  own  part,  I  am  not  convinced  that  the 
theory  to  which  Mr.  Horton  pins  his  faith  is  such  a 
contemptible  one  as  Dr.  Coe  seems  inclined  to  think. 
But  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  theory  of  the 
subliminal  consciousness  has  been  drawn  out  to  ex- 
travagant lengths  by  clergymen  and  laymen  who 
regard  it  as  a  new  and  valuable  proof  of  the  existence 
of  a  personal  Deity.  **  I  believe,"  says  a  preacher  cited 
by  Dr.  Coe,  ''  that  the  subconscious  mind  is  the  indi- 
vidual manifestation  of  the  Universal  Mind — God."^ 
Perhaps  this  is  true;  perhaps,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
not  true.  Even  in  the  former  case  some  exceedingly 
important  questions  still  remain  unsolved.     In  what 

1  This  quotation  is  from  J.  Brierley's  Religion  and  Experience,  p.  47. 

2  Prof.  G.  A.  Coe,  Ph.D.,  in  The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  July, 
1909,  pp.  340-1-  3  Ibid.,  p.  346. 


Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy         189 

measure  does  the  individualisation  of  the  Universal 
Mind  modify  or  destroy  the  perception  of  divine  truth? 
To  what  extent  does  the  divine  cease  to  be  divine  when 
it  individuaHses  itself  in  the  subHminal  consciousness? 
Unless  we  know  how  we  stand  with  reference  to  these 
matters,  the  knowledge  that  we  possess  a  fragment  of 
individualised  divinity  may  be  regarded  as  a  doubtful 
benefit.  Not  the  most  devoted  admirer  or  worshipper 
of  his  owm  subconscious  self  will  be  presumptuous 
enough  to  assert  that  it  invariably  expresses  itself  in  a 
manner  suggestive  of  the  infinite  knowledge,  power,  and 
goodness  ascribed  to  God.  Dr.  Coe  hints  that  if  the 
subconscious  mind  is  divine  it  seems  to  disguise  itself 
pretty  effectually  sometimes  as  a  mumbler  of  "plati- 
tudes and  ambiguities."^  Moreover,  it  is  noteworthy 
that  different  subconscious  personalities  give  entirely 
different  and  often  incompatible  accounts  of  what  con- 
stitutes religious  truth.  He  who  has  been  brought  up 
in  Christian  siurroundings  and  is  himself  a  Christian  may 
indeed  find  his  religious  outlook  greatly  widened  when 
he  experiences  a  **  subliminal  uprush, "  or  when  by  some 
means  or  other  he  has  obtained  access  to  his  subcon- 
scious self,  but  it  is  rarely,  if  ever,  that  the  pronounce- 
ments of  the  subliminal  self  will  be  fotmd  to  contradict, 
in  essentials,  the  religious  convictions  of  the  supralimi- 
nal or  normal  mind.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  there  is  not 
a  single  example  of  a  person  who  in  the  trance-state — 
that  is,  the  condition  in  which  the  supraliminal  con- 
sciousness is  put  to  sleep  and  the  subliminal  becomes 
active — has  testified  to  the  truth  of  a  religion  with  which 
in  his  normal  state  he  was  totally  unacquainted  or  with 
which  he  was  entirely  out  of  sympathy.  The  Japanese 
trance-medium  finds  in  his  subliminal  consciousness 
nothing  to  contradict  the  ordinary  Japanese  notions 
*  Prof.  G.  A.  Coe,  loc.  cit. 


iQO         Prayer,  Faith,  and  Telepathy 

regarding  the  deities  of  Shinto  and  Buddhism. '  Hyp- 
notise a  Scots  kirk-elder,  and  unless  he  has  been  sur- 
reptitiously dabbling  in  Eastern  lore  in  his  waking 
hours  his  friends  need  have  no  fear  that  in  his  subliminal 
raptures  he  will  blasphemously  murmur  the  praises  of 
Krishna.  Obtain  access  to  the  subconscious  mind  of  a 
Chinese  Taoist  priest  whose  supraliminal  intellect  has 
never  been  influenced  in  any  way  by  Christian  teach- 
ings, and  you  may  explore  its  deepest  recesses  without 
coming  across  the  least  trace  of  a  consciousness  of  the 
Godhead  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

'  See  Percival  Lowell's  Occult  Japan,  pp.  97  seq.  (4th  impr.). 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SCIENCE  Amy  PRAYER 

RELIANCE  on  the  telepathy  argument  to  explain  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  may  lead  to  unexpected  results 
somewhat  dangerous  to  the  cause  of  so-called  revealed 
religion;  and  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  the  argument 
becomes  less  and  less  popular  among  the  clergy,  in 
proportion  as  the  processes  of  telepathy  pass  imder  the 
dominion  of  natural  science.  A  recent  writer  on  the 
subject  declares  that  prayer  maybe  said  to  have  efficacy, 
**not  by  a  violation  of  natural  order,  but  through  tele- 
pathic agencies,  which  are  part  of  that  order.  "^  Now 
if  this  be  so,  surely  the  result  will  be  that  as  soon  as 
telepathy,  duly  classed  and  ticketed,  has  taken  its  ap- 
pointed place  among  facts  of  the  natural  order  recognised 
by  science,  all  prayers  that  depend  for  their  efficacy 
on  telepathic  agencies  will  gradually  become  secularised 
in  form,  and  finally  lose  all  religious  significance.  If  a 
man  in  China  finds  that  by  following  certain  printed 
rules,  or  by  placing  himself  in  the  hands  of  a  professor  of 
telepathy,  he  can  get  into  communication  with  the  mind 
of  his  friend  in  America,  it  is  hardly  likely  that  out  of 
mere  respect  for  religious  tradition  he  will  long  persist  in 
submitting  the  process  to  sanctification  by  prayer.  The 
operator  of  wireless  telegraphy  does  not  act  on  the 
supposition  that  the  proper  transmission  of  messages  is 

^  Some  Problems  of  Existence,  by  Nonnan  Pearson,  p.  121  (Edward 
Arnold,  1907). 

191 


192  Science  and  Prayer 

dependent  on  his  offering  propitiatory  sacrifices  to  the 
ether-demons;  yet  if  the  "natural  order"  includes  tele- 
pathy as  well  as  wireless  telegraphy,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  why  prayers  should  be  considered  necessary  or 
desirable  in  the  one  case  and  not  in  the  other.  Already, 
indeed,  modem  civilisation  has  witnessed  the  gradual 
encroachment  by  science  on  what  was  once  regarded  as 
the  exclusive  domain  of  prayer.  Let  us  imagine  that  we 
are  living  in  England  in  the  early  years  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Victoria.  A  fond  father  has  just  said  good-bye 
to  his  emigrant  son,  who  is  going  to  Australia.  With 
the  son  goes  an  older  man  who  has  promised  to  be  the 
youth's  protector,  and  who  is  believed  by  the  father  to 
be  a  man  of  probity  and  honour.  Long  after  the  ship 
has  set  sail,  but  before  it  has  reached  its  destination,  the 
father  discovers  clear  proof  that  his  son's  companion  is 
a  man  of  bad  character  who  has  formed  a  plot  to  de- 
fraud his  son  of  all  his  worldly  possessions  as  soon  as  the 
vessel  reaches  Australia.  The  father  is  helpless.  By 
the  time  he  can  communicate  with  his  son  by  letter  the 
rascal  will  probably  have  got  away  with  his  booty,  and 
the  son  may  be  a  destitute  wanderer  in  a  strange  land. 
It  happens,  however,  that  the  father  is  an  extremely 
devout  Christian  and  a  sincere  believer  in  prayer.  As  a 
matter  of  course,  then,  he  spends  many  anxious  hours  in 
praying  that  his  son's  interests  may  be  safeguarded  by 
his  heavenly  Father,  and  that  by  special  divine  inter- 
vention the  rogue's  villainy  may  be  unmasked.  Such, 
we  may  suppose,  would  have  been  the  procedure  of  a 
Christian  father  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. And  what  would  he  do  in  similar  circumstances 
at  the  present  time?  Obviously,  he  would  send  a  tele- 
gram to  meet  his  son  at  the  first  Australian  port.  He 
might  pray,  too?  By  all  means — after  his  return  from 
the  telegraph  office. 


Science  and  Prayer  193 

Doubtless  we  shall  be  told  that  all  the  inventions  of 
modem  civilisation  are  themselves  gifts  of  God,  and  that 
if  he  chooses  to  grant  our  wishes  through  the  medium  of 
electricity  our  gratitude  to  him  should  not  therefore  be 
less  than  if,  for  our  special  benefit,  he  were  to  suspend 
the  operation  of  a  law  of  Nature.  I  do  not  for  a  moment 
wish  to  imply  that  science  knows  everything  that  can  be 
known  about  the  laws  and  forces  of  which  it  makes  use. 
The  ultimate  mysteries  of  electricity,  like  those  jealously 
guarded  by  the  "flower  in  the  crannied  wall,"  are  still 
beyond  our  reach,  as  every  honest  man  of  science  readily 
acknowledges.  It  may  be  that  the  whole  universe  is 
interpenetrated  by  an  infinite  Spirit  or  guided  by  a 
Divine  Being  who  possesses,  or  does  not  possess,  the 
attributes  of  personality;  but  this  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that  the  scientific  methods  resulting  from  the  discoveries 
and  inventions  of  modem  times  do  usurp,  to  an  ever- 
increasing  extent,  the  territory  over  which  Prayer 
formerly  held  undisputed  sway.  A  mother's  prayers 
may  indirectly,  as  we  have  seen,  be  the  means  of  saving 
her  child's  life ;  but  when  one  of  your  great  modem  cities 
is  attacked  by  plague  or  cholera  do  you  ask  God  in 
prayer  to  take  the  disease  away,^  or  do  you  reinforce 
your  sanitary  staffs  and  see  to  the  drains?  Possibly 
you  do  both;  but  there  is  little  room  for  doubt  as 
to  which  of  the  two  methods  enjoys  the  larger  share  of 
popular  confidence. 

The  much-discussed  question  of  the  usefulness  or 
otherwise  of  prayers  for  rain  and  fair  weather  is  specially 
apposite  to  our  present  inquiry,  for  such  prayers,  from 

^  As  in  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  377: 

"Thine  awful  judgments  are  abroad, 
O  shield  us  lest  we  die; . . ., 

"Accept  the  sacrifice  we  bring, 
And  let  the  plague  be  stayed. " 
13 


194  Science  and  Prayer 

time  immemorial,  have  been  offered  up  on  the  hill-tops 
of  China  as  well  as  within  the  churches  of  Europe.^ 
According  to  the  orthodox  Christian  theory,  prayers  for 
rain  are  just  as  reasonable,  just  as  likely  to  meet  with  a 
favourable  response,  as  any  other  form  of  prayer.  That 
is  to  say,  the  personal  God  can,  and  sometimes  does,  in 
answer  to  the  prayers  of  his  people,  provide  them  with 
rain  which  would  not  have  fallen  if  they  had  not  prayed. 
But  although  prayers  for  rain  and  fair  weather  are  still 
retained  in  the  Western  prayer-books,  and  occasionally 
made  use  of,  it  may  be  assumed  with  some  confidence 
that  no  man  of  science  to-day  believes  in  the  power  of 
such  petitions  to  bring  about  a  change  in  meteorological 
conditions.  ^  No  one  doubts,  of  course,  that  prayers  for 
rain  may  possess  efficacy  of  a  certain  pragmatic  kind. 
The  act  of  prayer  presupposes  a  more  or  less  robust 
faith  in  the  utility  of  such  an  act ;  and  it  must  have  hap- 
pened again  and  again  in  both  Eastern  and  Western 
hemispheres  that  people  who  were  becoming  disquieted 
by  the  sight  of  brazen  skies  and  withering  crops  felt 
comforted  and  hopeful  when  they  were  told  that  public 
supplications  for  divine  pity  were  being  addressed  to  a 
heavenly  power.  Certainly  in  China,  where  droughts 
often  occur,  the  offering  up  of  official  prayers  for  rain 
has,  on  numerous  occasions,  been  the  means  of  staving 
off  tumults,  and  allaying  popular  discontent.  ^     Official 

^  For  examples  of,  and  remarks  on,  Ancient  Greek  and  other  non- 
Christian  rain-prayers,  see  Max  Muller's  Last  Essays  (Second  Series, 
1906),  pp.  37  seq. 

=*  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  to  explain  that  I  am  not  ignoring  the  rather 
vague  speculations  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Man 
and  the  Universe. 

3  A  missionary  writer  tells  an  amusing  story  of  some  village  priests  in 
China  "who,  finding  their  god  was  supine  in  the  matter  of  sending  rain, 
bored  a  hole  in  his  side  and  inserted  a  centipede"  (Ritson's  Abroad  for 
the  Bible  Society). 


Science  and  Prayer  195 

prayers,  at  such  seasons,  are  postponed  as  long  as  pos- 
sible; thus  time  is  gained,  and  meanwhile,  any  day  the 
rain  may  come  in  obedience  to  normal  meteorological 
law.  But  though  prayers  for  rain  may  thus  have  a 
certain  usefulness  of  their  own,  among  a  simple-minded 
people,  we  are  not  thereby  justified  in  asserting  that 
they  possess  objective  efficacy.  Surely  we  are  pre- 
vented only  by  the  present  imperfection  of  our  scientific 
knowledge  from  recognising  that  it  is  just  as  futile  to 
pray  for  rain  when  skies  are  cloudless  as  it  would  be  for 
a  party  of  famishing  explorers  at  the  South  Pole  to  pray 
for  bananas  to  grow  on  an  iceberg.  The  one  proceeding 
seems  less  absurd  than  the  other  only  because  our  bo- 
tanical knowledge  is  in  a  more  advanced  stage  at 
present  than  our  knowledge  of  meteorology. 

What  tends  to  the  survival  of  popular  belief  in  the 
efficacy  of  supplications  for  a  divine  interference  with 
the  laws  of  nature  is  the  fact  that,  as  experience  shows, 
events  do  quite  frequently  occur  in  accordance  with  the 
desires  expressed  in  prayer.  It  would  be  astonishing, 
indeed,  if  this  were  not  the  case;  but  thoughtless  people 
are  only  too  ready  to  accept  the  theological  suggestion 
that  such  events  can  have  come  about  only  through 
special  divine  intervention  and  in  direct  response  to 
prayer.  Let  us  suppose  ourselves  faced  by  these  three 
facts :  Rain  is  badly  wanted,  prayers  are  offered  to  God, 
rain  falls.  Now  follow  these  important  questions.  Did 
the  rain  come  in  answer  to  the  prayers?  Is  it  quite 
certain  that  the  rain  would  not  have  fallen  if  there  had 
been  no  prayers?  A  very  large  number  of  ecclesiastics 
and  laymen,  and  certainly  the  great  majority  of  the 
Christian  missionaries  in  China,  would  unhesitatingly 
answer  ''yes'*  to  the  first  question,  and  most  of  them 
would  either  decline  altogether  to  consider  the  second, 
or  merely  admit  frankly  that  they  could  not  possibly 


196  Science  and  Prayer 

answer  it.  But  surely  it  is  clear  that  the  two  questions 
are  really  one.  So  long  as  there  is  the  slightest  doubt 
as  to  whether  the  rain  would  or  would  not  have  fallen  if 
no  prayers  had  been  offered,  it  is  not  logically  justifiable 
to  answer  the  first  question  with  an  unhesitating  *'yes" ; 
unless,  of  course,  the  person  who  gives  such  an  answer 
tacitly  assigns  to  the  question  itself  a  meaning  that  was 
not  in  the  mind  of  the  person  who  asks  it.  If  the  rain 
was  caused  by  the  normal  action  of  meteorological 
laws — so  that,  given  the  laws  and  an  adequate  know- 
ledge of  them,  the  rain  could  have  been  predicted  by 
scientific  experts,  even  if  such  experts  were  not  aware 
that  prayers  were  being  said,  and  did  not  take  such 
prayers  into  consideration — then  it  is  not  accurate  to 
say  that  the  rain  has  come  as  a  consequence  of  the  God- 
moving  prayers  of  a  thirsty  population.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  rain  fell  when  scientific  experts  (in  spite  of  the 
postulated  adequacy  of  their  knowledge  of  meteorology) 
had  ascertained  that  rain  could  not  fall,  then  it  would  be 
permissible  and  justifiable  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  that 
the  event  was  due  to  a  supernatural  or  supernormal 
cause,  which  might  or  might  not  be  the  will  of  a  personal 
God.  The  fact  that  our  knowledge  of  meteorology  is 
not  yet  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  foretell  the  state  of  the 
weather  as  positively  as  we  can  foretell  the  hoiu*  at 
which  the  moon  will  rise  on  a  given  day  does  not  justify 
us  in  assuming  that  the  laws  of  meteorology  are  not  quite 
as  regular  and  inviolable  (or  at  least  inviolate)  as  those 
that  govern  the  movements  of  the  celestial  bodies.  ^   Eu- 

^  "It  would  be  positively  immoral  for  us  now, "  says  Bishop  Westcott 
(.Gospel  of  the  Resurrection,  pp.  38-9),  "to  pray  that  the  tides  or  the  sun 
should  not  rise  on  a  particular  day;  but,  as  long  as  the  idea  of  the  physical 
law  which  ruled  them  was  unformed  or  indistinct,  the  prayer  would  have 
been  reasonable,  and  (may  we  not  suppose?)  the  fulfilment  also. "  This 
passage  is  quoted  by  Mr.  Philip  Vivian  in  his  work,  The  Churches  and 
Modern  Thought  (2nd  ed.),  p.  52,  and  he  adds  the  following  simple  com- 


Science  and  Prayer  197 

ropeans,  knowing  the  true  cause  of  eclipses,  laugh  at  the 
Chinese  for  carrying  out  ceremonies  that  were  apparent- 
ly designed  to  assist  the  sun  in  withdrawing  itself  from 
the  jaws  of  a  hungry  dragon.  Perhaps  they  themselves 
may  be  greeted  with  the  gibes  of  their  own  descendants 
for  their  simplicity  in  supposing  that  a  religious  cere- 
mony could  produce  or  avert  a  downfall  of  rain.  Certain 
kinds  of  prayer,  as  has  been  admitted,  may  have  a  very 
real  efficacy ;  but  we  have  not  the  slightest  reason  for 
supposing  that  telepathy,  or  communion  with  our  sub- 
liminal selves  or  with  a  spiritual  world,  has  ever  had  the 
smallest  effect  of  any  kind  on  the  ordering  of  the  weather. 
This  conclusion  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  an  admis- 
sion of  the  possibility  that  man,  in  the  ages  to  come, 
may  be  able  to  turn  on  the  rain  exactly  when  he  wants  it. 
We  can  assign  no  limits  whatever  to  the  powers  which 
man  may  acquire  in  the  course  of  his  future  evolutional 
development,  or  through  his  continual  progress  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Perhaps  the  beings 
that  populate  Mars  are  using  their  canals  for  the  storage 
of  water  selfishly  stolen  from  the  atmosphere  of  more 
humid  planets  than  their  own;  possibly  it  is  they  who 
are  responsible  for  the  desiccation  of  the  Euro-Asiatic 
plateau  and  the  rainlessness  of  Central  Australia.  Even 
if  this  be  so,  we  may  rest  assured  that  the  Martian 
Canal  Board  does  not  consider  it  necessary  to  offer  up 
prayers  to  the  Earth,  or  to  any  other  heavenly  body, 
before  carrying  out  its  severely  practical  departmental 
duty  of  filching  the  terrestrial  waters. 

ment  with  regard  to  the  last  eight  words:  "It  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  these  can  really  be  the  words  of  one  of  the  Church's  greatest  scholars. 
To  what  extent  will  not  bias  influence  the  brain  to  use  its  powers  per- 
versely? It  is  far-fetched  arguments  of  this  kind  that  increase  rather 
than  dispel  doubt  in  the  normal  mind,  and  especially  when  they  are 
brought  forward  in  all  seriousness  by  the  very  pillars  of  the  Church." 
With  this  comment  I  unhesitatingly  concur. 


198  Science  and  Prayer 

It  may  strike  many  readers  as  unneoessary  to  discuss 
a  question  that  they  suppose  has  long  ago  been  settled. 
No  educated  person  now  seriously  believes,  they  may 
say,  that  prayer  is  of  any  avail,  except  through  its  effects 
on  the  person  who  prays,  and  possibly  (by  telepathy) 
on  the  person  prayed  for.  But  a  glance  at  the  journals 
published  by  missionaries  in  China  will  prove  that 
prayer  is  resorted  to  on  every  possible  occasion  and 
in  connection  with  every  conceivable  subject.  In  some 
circles  prayer  is  so  incessant  and  so  protracted  that  the 
missionaries  themselves  have  actually  taken  pity  on 
their  converts  to  the  extent  of  providing  them  with 
knee-pads.  I  have  before  me  a  quotation  from  a  letter 
in  which  it  was  observed  that  "we  were  led " — ^presuma- 
bly by  the  Deity,  though  this  is  not  explicitly  stated — 

to  get  straw  knee-pads  made,  so  that  at  the  different 
services  all  might  kneel  in  prayer,  instead  of  standing  up, 
as  we  usually  did.  The  result  has  been  excellent,  a  con- 
stant stream  of  prayer  has  been  kept  up  at  all  the  meet- 
ings, both  men  and  women  leading  in  prayer  as  they  felt 
led.  Often  we  were  on  our  knees  from  half-an-hour  to 
three-quarters  without  rising,  and  even  longer.  This 
"knee-drill"  has  had  the  effect  of  opening  up  the  avenues 
of  the  hearts  of  the  Christians  in  a  way  I  have  never 
noticed  before.^ 

The  following  quotation  will  give  some  idea  of  what 
takes  place  at  a  really  successful  missionary  prayer- 
meeting  : 

The  Lord  brought  us  to  one  accord  in  one  place,  and 
every  heart  seemed  breathing  out  its  earnest  purpose. 
Prayer  increased  in  volume  and  became  more  intense  until 
there  broke  forth  shouts,  and  then  there  followed  a  mighty 
movement  of  God's  Spirit  among  us.     Personally,  I  was 

'  China's  Millions,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  152. 


Science  and  Prayer  199 

not  aware  of  any  extraordinary  influence  except  an  influence 
to  pray.  I  felt  that  the  Lord  led  me  to  intercede;  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  led  me  to  plead  the  Blood  of  Christ  as  I  never 
pleaded  the  Blood  of  Christ  in  my  life  before — I  mean  with 
such  earnestness  and  such  continuance — that  we  might  be 
preserved  from  everything  false,  fictitious,  and  spurious, 
and  God,  I  believe,  answered  the  prayer.  A  mighty  time 
followed,  in  my  own  experience,  in  the  afternoon.^ 

An  account  of  a  similar  mighty  time,  elsewhere,  reads 
as  follows: 

I  shall  never  forget  that  wonderful  day  in  Mukden,  when 
it  seemed  as  though  a  rushing  mighty  wind  broke  into  the 
church,  and  the  whole  congregation,  as  if  with  one  heart 
went  down  on  its  knees  and  burst  into  such  a  volume  of 
prayer  as  I  think  I  shall  never  hear  again  on  earth.  It 
was  wonderful.  I  just  wish  you  had  heard  it  as  we  heard 
it;  sometimes  rising  until  it  seemed  like  the  roaring  of  the 
sea,  and  then  coming  down  again  to  a  little  whisper,  and 
then  gradually  rising  again.  And  this  for  what? — crying 
for  pardon  on  behalf  of  some  one,  of  some  number  of  men 
and  women,  who  had  begged  us  on  their  knees  to  pray  for 
them.  Then,  suddenly,  it  ceased,  and  you  would  hear  that 
great  audience  raising  its  voice  in  a  hymn  which  we  often 
sang.     Shall  I  sing  it  to  you?'' 

The  hymn,  needless  to  say,  was  duly  simg. 

It  appears  that  one  reason  why  praying  must  be  so 
tumultuously  and,  as  one  is  inclined  to  infer,  confusedly 
engaged  in,  is  that  many  repetitions  are  necessary  be- 
fore answers  to  prayer  can  properly  be  looked  for.  One 
quiet  and  simple  petition  to  the  Deity  is  not  likely  to 
bring  a  favourable  response;  it  is  apparently  supposed 
that  if  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  were  granted  on  a  first 

^  China's  Millions  p.  148.  *  Ibid.,  June,  1909,  p.  84. 


200  Science  and  Prayer 

application  they  would  grow  conceited.  *'  God  reqmres 
us  to  persevere,"  we  are  told,  *' because  if,  after  the 
first  or  second  prayer,  a  great  inrush  came  into  the 
Church,  how  puffed  up  we  would  get.  "^ 

These  quotations  show  with  sufficient  clearness  that 
evangelical  missionaries  in  China  are  absolutely  con- 
vinced that  prayer  is  a  universal  panacea.  They  pray 
for  everything  they  want,  and  if  they  get  what  they 
prayed  for  no  shadow  of  doubt  enters  their  minds 
that  it  came  in  direct  answer  to  their  prayers.  For 
example,  here  is  a  paragraph  which  bears  the  title 
' '  Prayer  Answered  " ; 

For  a  few  days  during  July  the  Girls*  Day  School  was 
closed,  partly  on  account  of  the  hot  weather  we  were  having, 
partly  because  the  teacher  we  had  was  unsuitable,  and  no 
other  was  immediately  forthcoming.  It  was  a  real  answer 
to  prayer  when  Mr.  Kiang,  a  Christian  B.A.  from  one  of 
the  country  villages,  offered  to  make  that  his  special  work 
for  the  present.* 

If  better  room  accommodation  for  prayer-meetings  or 
Church  services  is  considered  necessary,  this  matter  is 
straightway  laid  before  the  Lord,  and  though  we  find 
that  consular  or  diplomatic  assistance  is  by  no  means 
considered  superfluous  on  such  occasions,  it  is  always 
the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  alone,  who  is  regarded  as  re- 
sponsible for  a  successful  issue. 

The  Lord  has  granted  our  request  regarding  the  ob- 
taining of  better  accommodation.  He  has  done  great 
things  for  us:  He  has  filled  our  mouth  with  laughter  and 
our  tongue  with  singing.  Some  perhaps  thought  we  were 
asking  too  much,  and  could  scarcely  expect  to  get  it;  but 

^  China's  Millions,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  116. 
^Ibid.,  Dec,  1909,  p.  187. 


Science  and  Prayer  201 

our  eyes  were  unto  our  God;  He  knew  all  our  circumstances 
and  the  need,  and  He  has  marvellously  and  abundantly 
provided  for  it.  Though  very  difficult  to  get  in  Huapu,  we 
found  a  house,  and  the  ground  on  which  it  stands,  to  buy 
for  $430.     The  Mission  kindly  granted  us  fcoo. ' 

All  subscriptions  to  mission  funds  are  regarded  as 
coming  in  direct  response  to  prayer.  A  recent  publica- 
tion states  that  the  China  Inland  Mission  ''has  in  just 
over  forty  years  received  more  than  £1,000,000  sterling 
without  any  public  collections  or  solicitations  of  funds, 
but  solely  in  answer  to  prayer."^  The  following  inci- 
dent is  related  by  a  missionary  as  one  of  many  similar 
proofs  that  God  "hears  the  prayers  of  his  people"  with 
regard  to  pecuniary  assistance.  ''One  Saturday  morn- 
ing there  was  a  deficit  of  nearly  £8  for  the  week*s  bill, 
which  had  to  be  paid  on  that  day.  Before  twelve 
o'clock  a  lady  called,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  contribut- 
ing liberally,  and  brought  two  £10  notes  as  a  thank- 
offering  for  the  recovery  of  some  property. "  ^ 

.  '  China's  Millions,  Oct.,  1909,  p.  158  Cf.  the  following  passage  from 
the  same  periodical,  June,  1909,  p.  89.  "Kwangsinfu  was  a  very  anti- 
foreign  city,  and  the  people  of  the  place  made  it  their  boast  that,  though 
there  were  foreigners  in  other  parts,  there  were  none  in  their  city.  But 
in  the  end  of  1901  we  managed  to  rent  a  house  there.  The  Devil  tried 
to  turn  us  out.  When  the  literati  heard  that  we  had  settled  there,  they 
went  to  the  mandarin  and  objected,  But  the  mandarin  said : '  The  house 
has  been  rented  to  these  foreigners,  and  nothing  can  be  done.'  Thus 
the  Lord  worked  for  us. "  No  gratitude,  be  it  observed,  is  awarded  to 
the  Chinese  magistrate,  nor  is  there  any  recognition  of  the  diplomatic 
and  warlike  successes  of  the  Western  Powers  whereby  China  had  been 
compelled  to  open  her  gates  to  both  trade  and  Christianity. 

2  Faith  and  Facts  (Morgan  &  Scott).  The  quotation  is  from  an  ac- 
count of  the  book  given  in  The  Review  of  Reviews  of  Jan.,  1910,  p.  87. 
The  sapient  and  religious  editor  adds  that  this  wonderful  answer  to 
prayer  "is  one  of  those  phenomena  to  which  men  of  science  so-called 
frequently  give  the  go-by. " 

3  This  occurrence  might  perhaps  be  judged  more  noteworthy  if  the 
lady  had  not  already  been  "in  the  habit  of  contributing  liberally," 


202  Science  and  Prayer 

That  bibliolatrous  missionaries  should  fervently 
believe  in  the  objective  efficacy  even  of  the  crassest 
form  of  petitionary  prayer  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at 
when  we  remember  the  clear  and  imambiguous  promises 
alleged  to  have  been  made  in  reference  to  this  matter  by 
Jesus  Christ  himself. '  **  If  ye  shall  ask  anything  in  my 
name,  I  will  do  it."  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  many 
Chinese,  sunk  in  ignorance  and  superstition  and  already 
half  incHned  to  beHeve  that  all  foreigners  wield  miracu- 
lous powers,  fall  under  the  influence  of  skilful  Christian 
preachers  without  really  knowing  or  caring  anything 
about  the  higher  aspects  of  the  Christian  faith.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  say  how  many  Chinese  have 
been  induced  to  attend  Christian  meetings,  or  even  to 
become  nominal  converts,  in  the  expectation  of  being 
let  into  some  of  the  secrets  of  the  foreign  magic.  The 
heathen  outsider  constantly  hears  the  wildest  rumours 
of  the  wonderful  things  obtained  by  his  Christian 
neighbours  in  the  way  of  answer  to  prayer.  If  the 
Christian  convert  or  the  promising  ''inqmrer"  wants 
any  material  or  spiritual  ** blessing"  he  is  told  to  pray 
for  it.  If  he  receives  the  boon  for  which  he  prayed  he 
is  told — and  he  believes  without  difficulty — that  it  has 
come  in  answer  to  his  prayer ;  in  other  words,  that  if  he 
had  not  prayed  he  would  not  have  got  it.  He  has  nei- 
ther the  power  to  disprove  this  nor  the  inclination  to 
dispute  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  boon  does  not 
come,  his  missionary  friends  turn  his  disappointment 
into  something  approaching  contentment  by  explaining 

Perhaps  the  most  celebrated  case  of  complete  reliance  on  prayer  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  funds  for  religious  or  charitable  purposes  is  that  of  the 
well-known  George  Miiller  of  Bristol.  For  some  observations  on  that 
case,  see  Prof.  William  James's  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp. 
467-72. 

^  Cf.  Matt,  xxl.,  21-2;  and  John  xiv.,  12-14. 


Science  and  Prayer  203 

that  the  Lord  indeed  Hstened  with  the  closest  attention 
to  his  prayer,  but  knew,  by  virtue  of  His  omniscience, 
that  to  grant  it  would  do  him  more  harm  than  good,  and 
that,  therefore,  in  withholding  the  boon  the  Lord  really 
answered  his  prayer  in  a  far  kinder  way  than  by  grant- 
ing it!  The  convert  may  be  rather  bewildered  by  all 
this,  but,  once  more,  he  is  unable  to  disprove  the  argu- 
ment and  has  no  strong  inclination  to  dispute  it.  Very 
likely  he  feels  that  he  would  have  gladly  risked  the 
harm  if  only  he  could  have  obtained  the  boon,  but  this 
reflection  he  probably  keeps  to  himself;  and  in  course  of 
time  he  may  come  to  beHeve  that  all  his  prayers  are 
heard  by  an  ever-attentive  Deity  and  invariably  an- 
swered in  the  wisest  and  best  possible  way.  Meanwhile 
the  heathen  learn  with  astonishment,  mingled  with  a 
steadily-increasing  envy  (tempered,  however,  by  dis- 
trust of  the  foreigner  and  his  ways),  that  the  God  whom 
the  Christians  worship  will  do  anything  they  ask  him 
to  do! 

Writing  of  the  *'  China  Inland  "  missionaries,  a  shrewd 
Scottish  observer  has  made  the  following  remarks: 

A  species  of  thaumaturgy  enters  largely  into  their 
system.  They  here  meet  the  Chinese  on  their  own  ground 
of  spiritualism  and  sorcery,  and  in  cases  of  sickness  or 
trouble  the  missionaries  seem  ever  ready  to  back  the  foreign 
against  the  native  Deity,  after  the  manner  of  Elijah  with 
the  prophets  of  Baal.  In  other  words,  they  live  by  prayer, 
not  privately  merely,  but  often  openly,  and  by  way  of 
challenging  their  opponents.  When  a  patient  dies  for 
whose  recovery  special  prayer  has  been  made,  and  the 
petitioners  are  self-pledged  to  a  successful  issue,  they  do 
not  look  at  the  material  cause  of  death,  but  examine  the 
mechanism  of  their  prayer  as  if  it  were  an  experiment  in 
physics  that  had  miscarried.  When  they  want  a  free 
passage  in  a  steamboat  they  pray  for  it  overnight,  and  the 


204  Science  and  Prayer 

most  hard-hearted  shipping  agent  is  unable  to  deny  the 
naively-pious  request  preferred  at  lo  a.m.  next  day. 
Nothing  of  the  most  trivial  kind  happens  to  these  good 
people  but  by  miracle,  that  is  to  say,  by  special  and  con- 
tinuous interpositions  of  the  Almighty,  with  whose  ideas 
they  affect  an  easy  familiarity  which  to  minds  reverentially 
constituted  is  rather  shocking.^ 

That  this  writer  was  not  wrong  in  saying  that  **the 
missionaries  seem  ever  ready  to  back  the  foreign  against 
the  native  Deity  '*  may  be  proved  by  any  one  who  cares 
to  dip  into  the  sometimes  saddening  and  sometimes 
diverting  pages  of  such  a  journal  as  China's  Millions, 
The  following  passage  is  cited  from  the  issue  of  June, 
1909: 

The  Christians  [in  Manchuria]  meet  together  and  go 
down  on  their  knees,  and  pray  all  together — not  one  man, 
but  all  together.  A  fine  thing  that.  I  think  that  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  if  you  introduced  it  here.  I  was  out  in  a 
village  at  Mukden,  and  I  was  talking  to  a  man  who  was 
not  a  Christian  at  all,  and  do  you  know  what  he  said  to  me? 
*'I  hear  that  that  prayer-meeting  in  Mukden  is  a  place  of 
power,"  he  said.  A  heathen  telling  us  that  the  prayer- 
meeting  was  a  place  of  power !  At  another  place  twenty  or 
thirty  men  and  women  offered  themselves  for  baptism.  I 
said  to  some  of  them : "  How  did  you  first  hear  about  Christ?  " 
**  Oh,"  they  said,  *'  you  know,  since  the  war  our  temple  here 
has  been  destroyed.  We  have  no  temple  to  which  to  go  to 
pray,  but  we  can  go  to  this  prayer-meeting  that  the  Christ- 
ians have  got  up.  We  have  been  offering  petitions  there, 
and  we  have  been  getting  answers."  The  first  things  that 
brought  them  to  think  of  becoming  Christians  were  the 
answers  which  they  themselves  and  their  friends  had  got 
by  sending  in  requests  at  this  Christian  prayer-meeting. 
That  is  a  great  gain  to  us — a  great  gain.^ 

*  Alexander  MIchie's  Missionaries  in  China,  pp.  33-4  (Tientsin,  1893). 
a  China's  Millions,  June,  1909,  pp.  84-5. 


Science  and  Prayer  205 

Of  the  truth  of  the  last  assertion  in  this  passage  there 
is  no  doubt  whatever.     But  is  this  the  way  in  which  the 
people  of  Europe  and  America  wish  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity  to  be  disseminated  in  the  Chinese  Empire? 
We  frequently  hear  quaint  things  said  of  some  of  the 
converts,  who  evidently  do  not  always  understand  what 
is  expected  of  them  in  the  matter  of  prayer.     Of  the 
conduct  of  some  Chinese  Christians  at  a  prayer-meeting 
we  read  this:  ''Several  of  the  leaders,  men  of  much 
natural  abihty  and  force  of  character,  appeared  to  be 
resisting  the  work  by  taking  up  much  time  praying  for 
others  or  explaining  the  gospel  to  God  in  their  prayers."^ 
Perhaps  what  these  able  and  forceful  men  were  really 
trying  to  do  was  to  explain  to  the  Deity  the  particular 
interpretation  of  the  gospel  which  happened  to  com- 
mend itself  to  the  particular  sect  to  which  they  belonged. 
Possibly  it  required  a  good  deal  of  explanation.    Any- 
how it  is  difficult  to  see  why  they  should  be  accused 
of  ''resisting  the  work"  by  praying  for  others.     Surely 
their  altruism  was  highly  creditable  to  their  goodness 
of  heart,   and  was  deserving  of  praise  rather  than 

censure. 

All  good  "happenings,"  as  we  have  seen,  are  ascribed 
to  a  miraculous  act  on  the  part  of  the  Deity,  generally 
in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  faithful."  A  glad 
p^an  of  rejoicing  and  thanksgiving  went  up  from  the 

I  China's  Millions,  Aug.,  1909,  p.  118.  (Italics  not  in  original.) 
^  After  mentioning  the  death  of  the  late  Emperor  and  Empress- 
Dowager  of  China,  the  editor  of  China's  Millions  wrote:  "There  has 
been  no  great  national  upheaval,  as,  perhaps,  might  have  been  expected. 
Herein  is  cause  for  thanksgiving  unto  God  "  (March,  1909,  p.  40).  Now 
of  this  we  may  feel  certain,— that  if  there  had  been  an  upheaval  we 
should  have  been  informed  in  due  course  by  missionaries  that  here  was 
a  clear  proof  of  God's  abounding  mercy:  the  political  upheaval  bemg 
doubtless  intended  by  him  to  lead  to  a  great  moral  upheaval  in  which 
Christianity  would  at  last  come  to  its  own.  This  kind  of  thing  may  be 
pious,  but  it  is  uncommonly  like  cant. 


2o6  Science  and  Prayer 

Protestant  missionaries  in  China  when  the  anti-foreign 
province  of  Hunan,  with  its  exclusive  capital,  Changsha, 
was  thrown  open,  a  few  years  ago,  to  foreign  mis- 
sionaries.'  The  Hunanese  had  long  been  regarded 
as  the  best  haters  and  best  fighters  in  China,  and  long 
after  the  rest  of  the  empire  was  open  to  missionary 
activity  Hunan  kept  its  gates  firmly  closed  against  the 
foreigner.^  It  was  not  till  after  the  troubles  of  1900 
and  the  fall  of  Peking  that  missionaries  succeeded  in 
firmly  establishing  themselves  in  the  provincial  capital. 
The  China  Inland  Mission  arrived  in  1901,  and  eight 
years  later  there  were  representatives  of  no  fewer  than 
eleven  different  Protestant  sects  or  societies  in  the  city  of 
Changsha  alone.  The  opening  of  Hunan  and  Changsha 
was  due,  we  are  told,  to  prayer  and  to  the  intervention 
of  God.  We  are  also  assured  that  prayer  has  been  the 
means  of  advancing  the  prosperity  of  the  missionary 
propaganda  there.  "Prayer  opened  those  city  gates, 
prayer  will  keep  them  open,  and  prayer  will  maintain 
the  Hf  e  of  that  Church  continually.  *  *  ^  We  are  told  that 
on  one  occasion,  when  there  was  a  difficulty  about  ac- 
quiring premises  and  the  question  of  ways  and  means 
was  being  discussed  with  much  earnestness,  a  Chinese 
convert  ventured  to  remind  the  missionaries  that  ac- 
cording to  their  own  tenets  all  they  had  to  do  was  to 
pray!  They  took  the  hint — it  seems  astonishing  that 
the  plan  had  not  occurred  to  them  in  the  first  instance — 
and  **the  result  was  that  in  the  year  1903  the  desired 
premises  were  obtained.  "^  Another  missionary  in  the 
same  city  writes  thus: 


» See  p.  65. 

=»  The  Roman  Catholics,  however,  were  entrenched  in  Hunan  long 
before  the  Protestants  were  able  to  obtain  a  footing  there. 
3  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  106. 
'^Ibid, 


Science  and  Prayer  207 

Together  we  came  to  Changsha  in  1901,  and  with  heart 
knit  to  heart  we  worked  together  during  the  remarkable 
development  and  blessing  of  the  succeeding  years.  God 
used  Mr.  Li  to  lead  many  to  Christ,  a  number  of  whom  are 
now  preaching  the  gospel  in  various  parts  of  Hunan. 
Working  with  us  at  present  are  evangelists  Siao  and  Yang 
in  the  general  work,  and  Chen  and  T'ien  in  the  hospital 
work.  We  earnestly  commend  these  young  men  to  praying 
friends.  You  can  greatly  increase  their  efficiency  by  your 
prayers.  For  years  Mr.  Li's  hands  were  held  up  by  dear 
friends  in  Brooklyn,  to  whom  we  shall  ever  be  grateful.  Our 
return  to  Changsha  was  on  a  Tuesday,  and  the  next  day  we 
attended  the  monthly  union  prayer-meeting  of  the  Changsha 
Churches.  How  our  hearts  were  stirred  at  the  sight  of 
over  two  hundred  Changsha  Christians  gathered  on  a 
Wednesday  afternoon  to  worship  the  living  God!  My 
thoughts  went  back  seven  years  to  the  day  when  Mr.  Li 
and  I  landed  at  Changsha  and  tremblingly  walked  through 
the  city  gate  and  up  the  magnificent  main  street  of  this 
beautiful  capital, — this  city  that  had  been  such  a  strong- 
hold of  anti -Christian  and  anti-foreign  influence,  and  in 
which  at  that  time  there  was  but  one  little  meeting-room 
in  a  small  Chinese  house,  and  not  one  native  Christian. 
With  gratitude  and  wonder  I  said:  "What  hath  God 
wrought!"  I 

I  have  quoted  these  passages  because  they  are  inter- 
esting in  view  of  later  events.  The  paragraph  last 
cited  was  published  as  recently  as  November,  1909. 
About  j^y^  months  later  (April,  19 10)  the  foreign  mission 
buildings  in  Changsha  were  looted  and  destroyed,  and 
the  missionaries  were  fleeing  for  their  lives. 

The  Changsha  riots  (judging  from  the  meagre  reports 
available  at  the  time  of  writing)  appear  to  have  origin- 
ated in  popular  discontent  at  the  abnormally  high  price 
of  food.     The  animosity  of  the  people  was  primarily 

^  China's  Millions,  Nov.,  1909,  p.  166. 


2o8  Science  and  Prayer 

directed  against  their  own  officials,  and  was  apparently- 
only  turned  against  the  missionaries  owing  to  the  spread 
of  false  rumours  of  fresh  European  aggression  in  China 
and  to  the  common  Chinese  belief  that  foreigners  are 
responsible,  directly  or  indirectly,  for  most  of  the  em- 
pire's calamities.  ^  But  the  fact  that  the  riots  were  only 
partially  connected  with  the  popular  hatred  of  foreigners 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  an  adequate  explanation  of 
the  disaster  to  the  Christian  cause  and  the  destruction 
of  mission  property,  if  we  accept  the  contention  of  the 
missionaries  themselves  that  God,  in  answer  to  their 
prayers,  daily  and  hourly  works  miracles  on  their  behalf. 
When  full  reports  of  the  occurrences  reach  us  from  per- 
sons concerned  we  shall  doubtless  learn  from  them  that 
God's  special  interest  in  the  Changsha  missionaries 
and  their  work  is  still  abundantly  manifest ;  for  though 
he  allowed  their  buildings  to  be  destroyed  and  their 
property  to  be  looted,  he  nevertheless  preserved  their 
lives  from  a  heathen  mob  that  was  clamouring  for 
their  blood.  But  it  will  be  necessary  for  them  also  to 
find  some  plausible  explanation  of  the  strange  facts  that 
some  of  their  number  were  drowned  in  the  course  of  the 
journey  down  the  Yangtse,  and  that  the  ship  by  which 
their  boat  was  accidentally  simk  was  the  very  British 
gunboat  that  the  Lord  was  sending  up  to  Changsha 
with  a  view  to  their  protection ! 

When  Port  Arthur  was  capttired  from  the  Russians 

^  One  of  the  correspondents  of  The  North  China  Daily  News  writes  thus 
in  a  letter  of  April  i8,  1910:  "The  real  cause  of  the  riot  in  Changsha 
would  seem  to  be  the  old  anti-foreign  feeling,  although  the  actual  oc- 
casion was  a  sudden  rise  in  the  price  of  rice. "  The  fact  that  certain 
mission  stations  in  other  parts  of  Hunan  were  also  attacked  or  threatened 
is  a  very  significant  one;  and  there  seems  to  be  some  reason  for  the  sus- 
picion that  anti-foreign  feeling  throughout  Hunan  had  gradually  been 
gathering  in  force  and  might  have  ended  in  a  simultaneous  sanguinary 
attack  on  all  foreigners  in  the  province  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that 
the  rice-grievance  in  Changsha  led  to  a  premature  explosion. 


Science  and  Prayer  209 

by  the  Japanese  in  the  late  war  the  following  reproduc- 
tion of  a  press  telegram  from  Russia  appeared  in  The 
Times  of  January  5,  1905: 

The  news  has  produced  an  impression  of  indescribable 
sadness.  Among  the  working  classes  there  is  profound 
stupefaction.  Their  religious  convictions  make  it  im- 
possible for  them  to  believe  that  the  fortress  for  which 
so  many  prayers  have  been  said  by  the  Emperor  has  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 

It  had  been  firmly  believed  by  the  Russian  people — 
their  priests  and  rulers  had  continually  assured  them — 
that  ''Holy  Russia"  and  her  armies  and  fortresses  were 
under  the  special  protection  of  Almighty  God.  In  spite 
of  this  fact,  and  in  spite  of  the  most  earnest  prayers 
offered  up  by  God's  own  imperial  representative,  the 
great  Manchurian  fortress  was  captured  by  people  who 
were  not  even  Christians,  and  whose  prayers  had  all 
been  addressed  to  false  gods  or  to  the  Devil!  ''Stupe- 
faction" was  probably  the  best  word  that  the  corre- 
spondent could  have  selected  to  describe  the  state  of 
mind  produced  by  so  shocking  an  occurrence. 

Had  Port  Arthur  not  fallen,  had  the  war  ended  fa- 
vourably for  Russia,  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt  but 
that  the  Russian  masses  would  have  been  encouraged  to 
believe  that  their  success  was  in  itself  a  triumphant 
proof  of  Almighty  God's  special  love  for  the  Russian 
people.  Religion,  indeed,  is  never  at  a  loss  to  find  ex- 
cuses for  such  rough  blows  as  the  fall  of  Port  Arthur 
and  the  flight  of  the  missionaries  from  Changsha.  It  is 
a  very  simple  matter  to  point  out  that  the  Russian 
defeat  gave  an  impetus  to  the  reform  movement  in 
Russia,  and  was  therefore  really  a  gain  to  the  true  inter- 
ests of  the  Russian  State ;  and  that  in  allowing  the  de- 
struction of  mission  property  and  the  interruption  of 
14 


2IO  Science  and  Prayer 

missionary  labours  in  Changsha  the  Lord  was  merely 
testing  his  people's  faith  and  perhaps  punishing  his 
emissaries  for  having  shown  a  tendency  to  excessive 
self-confidence  and  pride.  Arguments  Hke  this,  how- 
ever, are  rarely  satisfactory  except  to  persons  who  are 
already  willing  to  ^'believe"  without  argument;  they 
will  not  convince  the  sceptic. 

We  might  perhaps  look  forward  with  hope  to  a  grad- 
ual cessation  of  what  I  venture  to  call  prayer-cant 
among  Christian  missionaries  in  China  if  it  met  with  no 
encouragement  from  the  religious  circles  in  Europe  and 
America  by  whom  foreign  missions  are  supported.  But 
unfortunately  it  is  not  only  imperfectly-educated  mis- 
sionaries and  icon- worshipping  peasants  that  believe  in 
a  God  who  works  miracles  in  answer  to  prayer,  and  who 
in  times  of  warfare  or  political  strife  interferes  with  the 
natural  course  of  events  in  order  to  give  victory  to  the 
side  graciously  favoured  by  himself.  Even  in  some  of 
the  rectories  of  civilised  England  we  may  find  traces 
of  similar  superstitions.  In  January,  19 lo,  during  the 
General  Election,  an  English  clergyman  announced  in 
the  public  press  ^  that  in  his  church  there  would  be  a 
''Special  Thanksgiving  Service  to  Almighty  God  for 
the  timely  deliverance  of  Woolwich  and  Plumstead 
from  the  hands  of  the  Socialists  and  Sabbath-breakers. 
.  .  .  The  Te  Deum  will  be  used  instead  of  the  proces- 
sional and  recessional  hymns."  The  vicar  had  ap- 
parently requested  the  Deity  to  secure  the  return  for 
Woolwich  of  a  parHamentary  candidate  whose  political 
views  coincided  with  his  own,  and  his  prayer  was 
** granted.*'  Thus,  while  for  China  we  have  an  anti- 
Confucian  and  anti-Buddhistic  God,  and  for  Europe  and 
Asia  a  pro-Russian  and  anti- Japanese  God,  it  appears 
that  for  England,  or  for  a  certain  parliamentary  division 

^  See  Daily  News,  Jan.  20,  1910. 


Science  and  Prayer  211 

in  England,  we  have  a  God  who  is  Conservative,  Sab- 
batarian, and  anti-Sociahst !  In  the  circumstances,  the 
defeat  of  the  Liberal  candidate  is  hardly  to  be  wondered 
at.  He  must  have  had  but  a  poor  chance  of  success 
against  the  combined  influence  of  Heaven  and  the  Vicar- 
age. The  advertised  Thanksgiving  Service,  indeed, 
was  not  held,  after  all,  for  an  episcopal  order  went  forth 
for  the  cancellation  of  the  arrangements ;  and  The  Spec- 
tatoVy  commenting  upon  the  incident,  very  properly 
denounced  the  vicar's  proceedings  as  the  act  of  an  "ill- 
mannered  fanatic. " '  But  The  Spectator,  unfortunately, 
does  not  circulate  among  Christian  converts  in  China; 
and  the  fanatics,  who  are  with  us  in  considerable  num- 
bers, know  themselves  to  be  gloriously  exempt  from 
episcopal  supervision. 

^  The  spectator,  Jan.  22,  1910, 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS  AND  SOCIAL  PREJUDICES 

MANY  Protestant  missionaries  refuse  to  accept 
converts  who  are  guilty  of  the  sins  of  drinking 
intoxicating  Hquors,  opium-smoking,  and  even  tobacco- 
smoking.  No  objection  is  Hkely  to  be  raised  to  these 
rules  by  any  sincere  well-wisher  to  the  Chinese  people  ; 
but  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  scriptural  or  ecclesiastical 
authority  can  be  quoted  for  refusing  Christian  member- 
ship to  a  man  who  declines  to  give  up  his  occasional  cup 
of  wine  or  his  pipe  of  tobacco.  I  am  aware  that  an 
attempt  has  been  made  by  earnest  missionaries  to  show 
that  the  miraculously-produced  wine  at  Cana  of  Galilee 
was  an  innocuous  non-intoxicant  beverage;  but  it  can 
hardly  be  miaintained  that  there  is  any  biblical  warrant 
for  this  well-intentioned  theory,  which  the  Governor 
of  the  Feast  would  probably  have  repudiated  with 
vehemence  had  it  been  advanced  by  any  of  his  guests.  ^ 
It  appears  that  the  very  strictness  of  the  temperance 
regulations  "^  in  Christian  circles  in  China  may  in  some 
cases  be  productive  of  worse  evils  than  either  smoking 
or  moderate  drinking — namely,  deceitfulness  and  hypo- 
crisy. During  a  revival  meeting  at  Honan  at  which 
many  sinners  were  moved  to  confess  their  shortcomings 

'See  John  ii.,  lo. 

^  "We  have  a  rule — experience  has  made  us  adopt  It — prohibiting  the 
drinking  of  intoxicants  even  in  moderation. " — China's  Millions ^  July, 
1909,  p.  102. 

212 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  213 

in  public,  one  man  got  up  to  say,  '*  I  have  been  smoking 
tobacco  in  secret,  knowing  that  it  was  wrong  for  me. " ' 
Is  it  Hkely  that  this  poor  sinner  was  the  only  one  of 
the  flock  who  had  thus  yielded,  on  the  quiet,  to  the 
temptations  of  the  flesh?  China,  of  course,  possesses 
its  temperance  societies  just  like  any  Western  country. 
The  members  of  the  Tsai  Li  society,  for  example  (which 
flourishes  in  many  parts  of  North  China),  are  under  a 
strict  obHgation  to  refrain  from  drinking  and  smoking ; 
but  no  Chinese  society,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  goes  so  far 
as  to  forbid  its  members  to  offer  drinks  and  smokes 
to  non-members.  There  are  missionaries,  however, 
who  do  not  shrink  from  enforcing  drastic  rules  of  this 
kind.  Referring  to  a  few  cases  in  which  it  had  been 
found  necessary  to  "discipline"  the  Church-members, 
a  missionary  writes:  "There  was  a  man  charged  with 
beating  his  wife,  and  another  accused  of  making  a 
present  of  whiskey  to  another  man, ' ' ""  These  peculiarities 
of  the  Christian  propaganda  in  China  do  not  meet  with 
serious  disapproval  on  the  part  of  right-minded  Chinese 
— why,  indeed,  should  they?  We  are  grateful  to  the 
missionaries  for  setting  a  good  example  to  our  people  in 
the  matter  of  sobriety,  just  as  we  are  grateful  to  them 
for  their  enthusiastic  support  of  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment in  its  efforts  to  abolish  opium-smoking.  But  I 
have  some  doubts  as  to  whether  the  missionaries  are 
well  advised  in  their  attempt  to  persuade  the  Chinese 
that  abstinence  from  smoking  and  drinking  is  a  charac- 
teristically Christian  virtue.  I  have  heard  the  people 
of  Scotland  described  as  the  sturdiest,  the  most  pro- 
gressive, and  the  most  religious  in  Europe ;  I  have  never 
yet  heard  them  described  as  the  most  sober.  Is  it  wise 
to  lead  a  Chinese  convert  to  suppose  that  the  Christian 
does  not  drink  or  smoke?    Some  day,  perhaps,  he  will 

^  China's  Millions,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  23.         ^  ij)id.,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  143. 


214  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

make  a  jotimey  to  the  treaty  ports,  or  to  foreign  lands, 
and  there  he  will  make  the  blood-freezing  discovery  that 
multitudes  of  Western  Christians — not  laymen  only, 
but  ordained  clergymen,  and  even  a  bishop  or  two — 
publicly  consume  their  wine  and  tobacco  and  are  not 
ashamed. 

In  questions  concerning  sexual  morality  the  Christian 
missionary  speaks  with  no  uncertain  voice.  I  am  by  no 
means  convinced — in  spite  of  the  assurances  of  our 
Christian  critics — that  sexual  vices  are,  on  the  whole, 
more  prevalent  in  China  than  in  some  Christian  lands. 
I  have  even  heard  Englishmen  admit  that  in  this  matter 
there  is  not  much  to  choose  between  England  and  China, 
and  that  if  to  a  superficial  observer  it  appears  that  the 
Chinese  are  more  vicious  than  the  English  it  is  partly 
because  they  are  less  hypocritical  and  partly  because 
of  certain  differences  between  English  and  Chinese  law. 
But  this  is  a  point  I  am  not  disposed  to  argue.  I  grant 
that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  vice  in  my  country,  and  if 
the  Christian  missionaries — whether  directly  by  their 
teachings  or  indirectly  by  their  own  most  admirable 
example — can  induce  the  people  of  China  to  grow  more 
virtuous,  we  shall  owe  them  an  incalculable  debt  of 
gratitude.  But  in  matters  affecting  morality,  as  in  very 
many  other  matters,  the  missionary  body  seems  to  take 
it  for  granted  that  the  Occidental  practice — or  perhaps  I 
should  rather  say  the  Occidental  code  of  precepts — is 
the  norm  or  standard  to  which  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
ought  to  adjust  itself.  This  is  notably  the  case  in  re- 
spect of  the  question  of  concubinage.  I  do  not  propose 
to  weary  my  readers  with  a  disquisition  on  the  laws  and 
customs  that  govern  the  Chinese  practice  in  this  matter. 
I  think  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  out,  for  the  purposes 
of  my  argument,  that  in  China  a  concubine  generally 
lives  under  the  same  roof  with  the  principal  wife;  that 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices   215 

she  often  joins  the  household  with  the  wife's  consent, 
and  even  at  her  expressed  wish ;  that  her  position  carries 
with  it  certain  legally-recognised  rights,  and  that  her 
lot  is  by  no  means  necessarily,  or  generally,  a  hard  one. 
It  is  true  that  the  status  of  a  concubine  (chHeh)  is  so- 
cially and  legally  inferior  to  that  of  the  wife  (chH) ,  but 
on  the  other  hand  she  generally  comes  of  a  family  that 
is  poorer  or  lower  in  the  social  scale  than  that  of  the 
wife,  and  as  a  concubine  she  is  often  far  happier  and  more 
comfortable  than  she  would  have  been  as  the  principal 
wife  of  a  man  of  her  own  class.  The  existence  of  legal- 
ised concubinage  in  China  by  no  means  signifies — as 
Western  observers  too  readily  take  for  granted — that 
the  Chinese  people  are  sunk  in  licentiousness ;  it  merely 
bears  witness  to  the  extreme  importance,  in  Chinese 
eyes,  of  the  raising  of  offspring  with  a  view  to  the  per- 
pertuation  of  the  ancestral  sacra.  If  a  married  couple 
are  childless,  and  likely  to  remain  so,  the  husband  is 
obliged,  by  the  duty  he  owes  to  his  parents  and  ances- 
tors, to  provide  for  the  succession  either  by  taking  a 
concubine  or  by  formally  adopting  the  child  of  a  brother 
or  other  near  relative.  Most  men  prefer  to  have  heirs 
of  their  body  rather  than  heirs  by  adoption;  and  the 
fact  that  by  Chinese  law  the  children  of  a  concubine 
are  fully  entitled,  as  legitimate  heirs,  to  inherit  the 
family  property  and  to  carry  on  the  ancestral  rites  is 
of  itself  a  clear  indication  of  the  social  reasons  that  have 
led  the  Chinese  to  establish  concubinage  as  a  legal  in- 
stitution. The  system  is  not,  indeed,  without  its  abuses. 
Though  a  poor  man  rarely  dreams  of  taking  a  concubine 
unless  his  wife  is  childless,  rich  men  will  avail  themselves 
of  the  custom  merely  as  a  matter  of  self-indulgence. 
Probably  it  will  be  a  beneficial  thing  for  China,  on  the 
whole,  and  especially  for  the  dignity  of  Chinese  woman- 
hood, when  the  legal  recognition  of  concubinage  is  with- 


2i6  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

drawn,  and  the  missionaries  are  doubtless  doing  good 
by  trying  to  influence  public  opinion  on  the  matter ;  but 
imder  present  social  conditions,  and  so  long  as  ancestral 
worship  retains  its  supreme  importance  in  the  religious 
system  of  China,  it  is  improbable  that  the  efforts  of  the 
missionaries  will  meet  with  much  success.  In  any  case 
they  are  scrutinising  Eastern  manners  with  the  aid  of 
Western  spectacles  when  they  declare  that  concubinage 
is  a  necessary  indication  of  corrupt  morality.^  It  is 
difficult,  indeed,  to  understand  how  they  can  even 
claim  that  it  is  contrary  to  their  alleged  revelation 
of  the  law  of  God. 

Polygamy  [as  a  recent  writer  has  reminded  us]  only 
began  to  disappear  among  the  Jews  in  the  fifth  century 
B.C.,  and  so  curious  was  the  influence  of  the  Old  Testament 
on  the  early  Christian  Church  that  several  of  the  Fathers 
could  not  bring  themselves  to  condemn  it,  and  it  was  not 
officially  suppressed  by  the  Church  until  a.d.  1060.  Luther 
and  the  Reformers  allowed  it  even  later.  ^ 

'  Describing  the  management  of  certain  schools  for  women,  a  mission- 
ary writes  thus:  "During  the  present  renaissance  many  applications 
for  entrance  have  been  received  from  women  who  have  no  desire  for 
Christianity,  but  who  have  wanted  to  learn  to  read.  The  girls'  schools 
were  closed  to  them,  and  thus  they  have  turned  to  the  women's  schools. 
Often  they  are  the  second  or  third  wives  of  officials,  and  in  order  to  keep  up 
the  tone  of  morality,  we  do  not  think  it  wise  to  admit  them.'' — Woman's 
Work  in  the  Far  East,  Dec,  1909,  p.  158.     (Italics  not  in  original.) 

2  The  Religion  of  Woman,  by  Joseph  McCabe,  p.  37.  Those  who  be- 
lieve (on  the  authority  of  the  Church)  that  to  Christianity  alone  belongs 
the  glory  of  giving  honour  to  womanhood,  may  perhaps  find  reason,  on  a 
perusal  of  this  work,  for  reconsidering  the  bases  of  their  belief.  See  also 
Philip  Vivian's  The  Churches  and  Modern  Thought  (2nd  ed.),  pp.  277  seg. 
Principal  Donaldson  (who  surely  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  Antichrist) 
rejects  the  "prevalent  opinion  that  woman  owes  her  present  high  posi- 
tion to  Christianity."  He  adds:  "In  the  first  three  centuries  I  have 
not  been  able  to  see  that  Christianity  had  any  favourable  effect  on  the 
position  of  women,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  tended  to  lower  their 
character  and  contract  the  range  of  their  activity."     (Quoted  in  D.  G. 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices   217 

If  the  missionaries  restricted  their  efforts  to  inducing 
rich  men  to  get  rid  of  their  supernumerary  female  com- 
panions, pubHc  opinion  would  probably  be  strongly  in 
their  favour ;  but  they  need  not  count  on  much  popular 
support  on  their  attempts  to  persuade  middle-aged  men 
who  have  no  children  to  desist  from  the  practice  of  act- 
ing after  the  manner  of  Abraham.  In  a  missionary's 
narrative  occurs  the  following  paragraph: 

On  Thursday  morning  we  left  Shinlufang  .  .  .  and 
reached  Sakaitsai.  This  place  was  somewhat  out  of  our 
way,  but  Mr.  Adam  wished  to  see  a  convert,  middle-aged 
and  childless,  who  had  taken  a  concubine.  It  was  a  modem 
version  of  the  story  of  Abraham,  Sarah,  and  Hagar.  I  fear 
our  visit  did  no  good.^ 

Here  was  a  stout-hearted  convert  who  quailed  not  even 
under  the  reproachful  gaze  of  his  spiritual  mentor;  but  a 
subsequent  paragraph  intimates  that  he  was  subjected 
to  ''church  discipline"  all  the  same.  As  a  well-known 
biblical  episode  is  mentioned  in  connection  with  this 
case,  perhaps  it  may  be  worth  remarking  that  the 
Chinese  theory  with  regard  to  a  concubine's  children  is 
precisely  the  same  as  that  of  Sarah.  ''And  Sarah  said 
unto  Abraham,  Behold  now,  the  Lord  hath  restrained 
me  from  bearing;  I  pray  thee,  go  in  unto  my  maid;  it 
may  be  that  I  may  obtain  children  by  her. "  ^  A  childless 
Chinese  wife  regards  the  children  of  her  husband's  con- 
cubine as  her  own.  They,  in  turn,  must  treat  her  dur- 
ing her  lifetime  with  all  the  respect  due  to  a  mother,  and 
after  her  death  they  must  sacrifice  to  her  manes  in 
accordance  with  the  full  rites  of  filial  piety. 

Ritchie's  Natural  Rights,  2nd  ed.  p.  172.)  Would  St.  Paul  have  approved 
of  female  missionaries  and  of  female  preachers  at  prayer-meetings? 

"  China's  Millions,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  143 

'  Gen.  xvi.,  2. 


2i8  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

When  missionaries  adversely  criticise  some  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  Chinese  Hfe,  their  fault-finding 
is  often  due  to  the  fact  (unrecognised,  of  course,  by 
themselves)  that  they  are  unable  to  adjust  themselves 
to  the  Oriental  point  of  view.  When  they  think  they 
are  inculcating  a  higher  morality  it  frequently  happens 
that  they  are  merely  inculcating  a  different  morality. 
In  other  words,  one  of  the  objects  steadily  kept  before 
them  is  to  persuade  the  Chinese  that  the  Western  code 
of  ethics  is  the  standard  to  which  the  rest  of  the  world 
ought  to  be  required  to  conform.  To  a  great  extent 
this  inability  to  see  things  from  other  people's  points  of 
view  is  common  to  nearly  every  one.  Perhaps  one  of 
the  rarest  of  human  qualities  (if  indeed  it  is  to  be  found 
at  all)  is  complete  freedom  from  racial,  political,  social, 
and  religious  prejudices.  Every  one  gets  into  a  groove 
of  some  kind,  and  is  apt  to  regard  everything  that 
cannot  be  fitted  into  the  same  groove  as  heathenish  or 
uncouth.  I  once  heard  an  Englishman  declare  that  he 
could  not  tolerate  American  naval  officers.  The  asser- 
tion seemed  rather  sweeping,  and  I  asked  the  reason. 
After  some  probing  I  discovered  it  was  because  the 
officers  of  the  American  navy  frequently  yielded  to  the 
temptation  of  leaving  the  upper  Hp  imshaved.  Pre- 
sumably a  moustache  does  not  prevent  a  man  from 
navigating  a  ship  or  firing  a  gun  unless,  indeed,  it  be 
of  an  exaggerated  German  type,  and  gets  in  front  of 
the  owner's  eyes;  but  the  fact  that  a  moustache  (un- 
accompanied by  a  beard)  is  tabooed  in  the  British 
navy,  was  quite  enough  to  create  a  sturdy  British  pre- 
judice against  the  adoption  of  such  a  facial  adornment 
in  the  navies  of  other  countries.^    We  all  have  pre- 

^  Cf.  the  English  prejudice  against  American  spelling,  and  vice  versa; 
and  the  frequent  assertion  of  Irishmen  and  Scotsmen  that  the  best 
"English "  is  spoken  in  Dublin  or  in  Inverness.     When  a  well-bred  Eng- 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  219 

judices  of  this  or  some  other  kind.  If  we  think  we 
have  none,  let  us  question  a  candid  and  plain-speaking 
friend  on  the  point,  and  we  shall  speedily  find  that 
hitherto  we  have  deceived  ourselves,  and  the  truth  was 
not  in  us.  While  freedom  from  prejudices  is,  of  course, 
an  ideal  to  be  aimed  at,  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said 
for  the  view  that  the  man  who  professes  to  be  without 
a  prejudice,  and  to  judge  all  things  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  lofty  impartiality,  is  a  man  whose  utterances  should 
be  taken  with  extreme  caution,  and  is  quite  possibly 
one  whose  judgments  in  most  matters  are  hardly  worth 
considering.  We  are  all  acquainted  with  persons  of 
this  type.  But  this  does  not  justify  the  average  Philis- 
tine's insular  self-satisfaction,  which,  when  it  proves 
to  be  incurable,  may  generally  be  traced  to  that  most 
deplorable  of  defects — a  lack  of  imagination.  It  is 
this  imaginative  deficiency,  surely,  that  is  chiefly  re- 
sponsible for  the  terribly  common  belief  that  one's  own 
particular  moral  and  social  code  is  the  correct  and  nor- 
mal one — the  code  by  which  all  others  should  be  tested 
and  judged.  To  take  a  simple  example :  many  Western 
travellers  to  China  and  Japan  laugh  at  our  chopsticks — 
our  *' nimble  ones, "  as  we  call  them — and  think  a  knife 
and  fork  are  more  ** civilised."  Our  own  prejudices 
lead  us  to  take  precisely  the  opposite  view.  We  think 
it  is  far  more  ''civilised"  to  have  our  food  prepared  in  tiny 
morsels  that  can  be  daintily  manipulated  by  a  pair  of 
wooden  or  ivory  sticks  held  in  one  hand,  than  to  have  it 
served  in  great  slabs  that  require  to  be  torn  asimder  by 
means  of  a  four-pronged  harpoon'and  a  one-edged  dagger. 
Perhaps  neither  method  is  intrinsically  superior  to  the 
other.      The  food  must  be  cut  somewhere  and  somehow 

lishman  visits  the  United  States  for  the  first  time,  it  generally  gives  him 
a  disagreeable  shock  to  hear  himself  described  as  speaking  with  an 
English  "accent. " 


220  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

and  perhaps  some  day  it  may  come  to  be  recognised  in 
both  East  and  West  that  the  only  way  to  eat  Hke  a 
gentleman  (and  here  peeps  out  one  of  my  own  special 
prejudices)  is  to  become  a  vegetarian.  Not  long  ago  a 
certain  native  official  in  China  accepted  a  missionary's 
invitation  to  dinner.  The  food  was  served  up  in  rather- 
old-fashioned  European  style,  and  one  of  the  dishes 
consisted  of  a  huge  roast  of  beef  which  the  missionary 
proceeded  ostentatiously  to  carve  on  the  table  al- 
most under  his  guest's  nose.  The  official  knew  next  to 
nothing  of  foreign  customs,  and  had  never  dined  in 
European  fashion  before.  Many  things  surprised  and 
almost  shocked  him — the  long  ''grace,"  for  instance, 
might  well  have  been  curtailed  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  not  a  Christian,  and  by  no  means  likely  to 
become  one — but  nothing  struck  him  with  so  much 
disgust  as  the  carving  of  the  roast.  Needless  'to  say,  he 
successfully  concealed  his  feelings,  but  he  rose  from  the 
table  more  convinced  than  he  had  ever  been  before  that 
Western  manners  had  not  yet  completely  emerged 
from  their  primeval  barbarity. 

There  are  countless  ways  in  which  Western  residents 
in  China  (not  missionaries  only),  acting  under  the  ap- 
parent impression  that  so  long  as  Western  good  manners 
are  preserved  intact  nothing  else  matters,  constantly 
violate  Chinese  canons  of  good  taste.  The  Chinese 
much  dislike  and  often  (among  themselves)  ridicule  the 
Western  practice  of  what  may  be  described  as  non-ama- 
tory osculation.  Western  ladies  and  the  members  of 
most  Western  families  in  China  think  nothing  of  kissing 
each  other  in  the  presence  of  their  Chinese  guests  and 
servants.  The  low  dresses  worn  in  the  evening  by 
Western  ladies  are,  as  most  people  know,  considered  by 
the  Chinese  to  be  shamelessly  improper ;  but  as  mission- 
ary ladies  do  not  offend  in  this  respect,  the  subject  need 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  221 

not  be  enlarged  upon.  Some  missionaries,  however, 
betray  in  another  direction  their  prejudices  in 
favour  of  Western  customs  in  the  matter  of  clothing. 
In  a  recent  missionary  journal  ^  appears  a  photograph 
of  two  female  school-teachers — foreign-educated  Chi- 
nese— who,  though  attired  in  the  ordinary  upper  gar- 
ment of  their  country,  have  adopted  the  Western  skirt. 
Presumably  a  Western  education  has  convinced  them 
that  the  usual  garments  of  a  Chinese  lady  are  immodest. 
It  seems  a  pity  that  some  sensible  foreigner  has  not 
made  it  clear  to  them  that  so  far  as  decency  in  clothing 
is  concerned,  the  Chinese  lady  has  nothing  whatever  to 
learn  from  her  Western  sisters. 

Some  Western  usages  are  regarded  as  merely  quaint 
or  "funny" — the  removal  of  one's  ha'^as  a  mark  of 
respect,  for  example,  or  the  custom  whereby  each  lady 
at  a  dinner-party  is  taken  into  the  dining-room  on  the 
arm  of  a  man.  A  Chinese  guest  at  an  English  dinner- 
party once  asked  to  be  enlightened  as  to  the  reason  for 
this  custom,  but  he  was  merely  laughed  at  as  a  queer 
fellow  for  having  allowed  such  a  problem  to  suggest 
itself  to  his  whimsical  mind.  **  How  like  a  Chinaman, " 
they  said,  * '  to  ask  a  question  like  that ! '  *  The  * '  China- 
man,"  in  a  subsequent  private  conversation,  hazarded 
the  suggestion  that  the  practice  is  based  on  a  polite 
fiction.  The  lady  is  so  weak  with  hunger  before  she 
goes  into  the  dining-room  that  she  requires  the  support 
of  a  masculine  arm  to  enable  her  to  walk  the  necessary 
distance ;  but  having  fortified  herself  with  the  good  fare 
provided  for  her  at  the  table,  she  is  strong  enough,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  meal,  to  find  her  own  way  back  to 
the  drawing-room.  But  this  explanation  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  adequate,  for  on  the  European  continent  the 
ladies  are  escorted  out  of  as  well  as  into  the  dining-room; 

^  Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East,  March,  igog,  facing  p.  14. 


222  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

which  might  suggest  to  an  uncouth  Chinese  mind  that 
having  once  been  induced  to  enter  that  convivial  apart- 
ment they  are  reluctant  to  leave  it. 

Needless  to  say,  there  are  many  Chinese  habits  and 
customs  that  are  quite  as  ridiculous  or  as  repulsive  in 
European  eyes  as  are  certain  Western  customs  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Chinese.  ^  But  I  believe  there  is  a  good  deal 
to  be  said  for  the  view  that  the  Chinese  are  able  to  adapt 
themselves  to  European  customs  much  more  readily, 
and  also  more  gracefully,  than  Europeans  can  adapt 
themselves  to  the  manners  of  China.  The  common 
Western  notion  is  that  the  Chinese  are  blindly  conser- 
vative, contemptibly  arrogant,  and  utterly  unable  to 
perceive  the  good  points  of  any  civilisation  but  their  own, 
and  all  this  (be  it  said  in  a  whisper)  is  very  much  what 
the  East  dares  to  think  about  the  West. 

Every  one  who  knows  anything  about  the  painful 
history  of  the  relations  between  China  and  the  Western 
Powers  is  acquainted  with  the  petty  but  acrimonious 
disputes  that  raged  over  the  question  of  the  k'o-t'ou 
(kow-tow).  The  k'o-t'ou  is  a  kind  of  exaggerated  obei- 
sance of  falling  on  both  knees  and  touching  the  ground 
with  the  hands  and  forehead.  If  a  European  were  to 
attempt  to  perform  this  rite  he  would  be  almost  certain 
to  make  himself  look  ridiculous,  not  only  in  the  sight 
of  his  own  countrymen,  but  also  in  that  of  the  Chinese. 
This  would  be  due  partly  to  the  awkwardness  of  his 
movements  consequent  on  his  want  of  practice  and 
partly  to  the  shape  and  fit  of  his  clothes.  European 
garments,  as  we  Chinese  should  have  frankly  recognised 

^  Frequent  and  noisy  expectoration  is  one  such  habit  (though  that  is 
not  unknown  outside  of  China),  and  another  is  the  native  practice — 
supposed  to  be  compHmentary — of  using  one's  own  chopsticks  to  place 
a  morsel  of  food  on  a  guest's  plate.  Chinese  who  wish  to  create  a  favour- 
able impression  among  Europeans  should  place  both  of  these  practices 
under  a  most  rigid  taboo. 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  223 

at  the  beginning,  are  in  no  way  adapted,  or  adaptable, 
to  the  performance  of  this  particular  ceremony.  Now 
we  Chinese  learn  to  perform  the  k'o-t'ou  in  our  earliest 
childhood — for  it  is  a  gross  mistake  on  the  part  of  Euro- 
peans to  suppose  that  it  is  an  undignified  act  only  im- 
posed on  a  servile  people  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  an 
arrogant  Court.  We  k'o-fou  to  our  parents,  to  oiu-  un- 
cles, and  to  many  friends  and  neighbours  during  the  first 
few  days  of  the  New  Year  and  on  other  solemn  occa- 
sions, and  we  perform  the  same  simple  ceremony  in  front 
of  the  tablets  of  our  deceased  ancestors  at  least  twice  a 
year.  I  have  heard  even  Europeans  express  pleasure 
at  the  sight  of  a  Chinese  child  paying  his  father  the 
reverential  salute  of  the  k^o-t'ou,  and  especially  at  the 
child's  entire  absence  of  awkwardness  or  self-conscious- 
ness. Perhaps  the  gracefulness  is  very  much  a  matter 
of  clothes ;  for  the  ungainly  movements  even  of  a  badly- 
built  man  are  more  than  half  concealed  beneath  the 
undulations  of  the  ceremonial  long  coat.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Europeans  flatly  refused  to  comply  with  the 
rules  of  Chinese  etiquette  in  the  matter  of  the  k'o-t'oUy 
for  the  custom  was  in  their  eyes  not  only  strange  and 
uncivilised,  but  intolerably  humiliating.  Now  that  we 
know  something  of  European  usages,  we  Chinese  can 
fully  realise  why  it  was  that  the  practice  was  so  strongly 
objected  to  by  our  Western  visitors,  but  Europeans  and 
Americans  should  also  see  clearly,  by  this  time,  that  in 
expecting  our  foreign  guests  to  k'o-fou  in  the  presence 
of  our  Emperor  we  had  no  intention  whatever  of  insult- 
ing them — net  at  least  until  acrimonious  disputes  had 
taken  place  and  each  side  thought  that  its  honour  was 
at  stake — and  that  we  were  merely  asking  them  to 
carry  out  what  was  in  our  eyes  a  quite  ordinary  rule 
of  etiquette.^  It  may  be  replied,  and  fairly  enough, 
I  "During  their  whole  national  history  the  Chinese  rulers  and  people 


224  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

that  the  foreign  ministers  and  their  staffs  should  have 
been  exempted  from  this  rule,  because  they  represented 
the  sovereigns  of  independent  states.  Certainly  we 
Chinese  were  punished,  and  deservedly  punished,  for 
the  political  and  geographical  ignorance  that  was  at 
the  root  of  our  arrogant  reception  of  the  foreign  re- 
presentatives; but  granting  it  to  be  true  that  the  rule 
should  have  been  relaxed — as  indeed  it  had  to  be  relaxed 
— in  favour  of  the  ministers,  our  Western  guests  surely 
went  too  far  in  contending  that  all  Europeans,  as  such, 
should  be  exempted  from  a  rule  of  court  etiquette  which 
had  always  been  complied  with  by  foreign  visitors  hith- 
erto, ^  and  which  was  carried  out,  not  only  by  the  greatest 
dignitaries  in  the  empire,  but  even,  on  certain  occasions 
of  great  solemnity,  by  the  Emperor  himself.  An  Eng- 
lish poet  wrote  some  spirited  stanzas  to  celebrate  the 
heroic  conduct  of  an  Englishman  who,  having  been 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Chinese,  suffered  death  rather 
than  perform  the  k'o-t'ou.  We  can  admire  the  bravery 
of  the  man  without  admiring  the  cause  for  which  he 
died.  Surely  no  ceremonial  attitude  of  the  body  can  be 
intrinsically  humiliating:  it  is  only  ^'thinking  makes  it 
so. "  Of  course  this  in  itself  may  be  said  to  justify  the 
sailor's  action.  If  a  man  does  something  which  he  him- 
self sincerely  believes  to  be  dishonourable  or  humiliating, 
but  which  as  a  matter  of  fact  happens  to  be  entirely 

had  accepted  this  ceremony  as  the  inseparable  prerogative  of  the  Son  of 
Heaven.  .  .  .  The  prince  and  his  colleagues,  by  their  discussion  of  the 
point,  had  aroused  the  resistance  of  the  great  body  of  literati  and  con- 
servative officials  in  the  empire,  who  had  grown  up  in  the  belief  that 
its  unity  and  prosperity  were  involved  in  the  performance  of  the  kotow.'* 
— ^Williams's  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,pp.  670,  712  (New  York,  1883). 
Kweiliang,  a  Chinese  imperial  commissioner,  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  "he  himself  would  willingly  burn  incense  before  the  President  of  the 
United  States  if  asked  to  do  so"  (Williams,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  670). 

^  Including  the  members  of  the  Dutch  mission  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeeth  century. 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  225 

devoid  of  ethical  significance,  then  that  man  will  suffer 
the  pains  of  dishonour  and  humiliation  just  as  much  as 
if  his  belief  in  the  nature  of  the  act  had  been  a  correct 
one.  It  is  not  to  be  denied,  indeed,  that  in  practice 
human  action  can  rarely  be  altogether  non-moral; 
though  the  ethical  value  of  every  act  is  not  inherent  in 
the  act  as  such,  but  is  dependent  on  the  relation  between 
the  doer  and  the  thing  done.  In  Chinese  eyes  the  k'o-t'ou 
is  merely  symbolical  or  expressive  of  deep  respect,  like 
the  ordinary  Western  practice  of  kneeling,  or  the  re- 
moval of  the  hat.  Intrinsically  there  is  nothing  in 
taking  off  one's  hat:  one  might  just  as  well  take  off  one's 
coat.  In  a  missionary  journal  I  find  an  account  of  a 
Chinese  boy  convert  of  whom  the  following  description 
is  given: 

I  often  asked  him  to  lead  in  prayer,  which  he  did  most 
reverently.  Removing  his  cap  and  standing  with  bowed 
head  he  spelled  with  great  distinctness.  * 

Here  we  have  a  good  example  of  how  a  European  custom, 
meaningless  in  itself,  but  arbitrarily  associated  in  West- 
ern minds  with  ideas  of  respect  and  reverence,  is  re- 
garded as  having  a  kind  of  universal  sanction  and  as 
being  in  some  obscure  way  pleasing  to  the  Deity.  As  it 
happens,  it  is  not  a  mark  of  respect  in  China  to  take  off 
one's  hat ;  indeed,  if  one  were  to  pay  a  ceremonial  visit 
to  an  acquaintance  during  the  hat- wearing  season,  the 
removal  of  one's  hat  (even  indoors)  without  an  apology 
for  the  act  would  be  a  breach  of  good  manners.  I  refer, 
of  course,  to  those — whether  foreigners  or  Chinese — 
who  wear  the  Chinese  national  costume.  Foreigners  in 
foreign  dress  appropriately  enough  follow  Western  cus- 
toms in  such  matters  as  the  removal  of  the  headgear, 

^  The  Chinese  Recorder,  May,  1909,  p.  247. 

IS 


226  Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices 

and  their  Chinese  acquaintances  are  not  likely  to  take 
offence  at  their  so  doing.  Europeans  have  a  proverb 
about  doing  in  Rome  as  the  Romans  do,  but  they  seem 
reluctant  to  apply  the  principle  to  their  dealings  with 
the  Far  East.  What  was  really  at  the  root  of  the  em- 
phatic refusal  of  our  Western  visitors  to  perform  the 
k'o-t'oM?  Our  remote  ancestors,  we  are  told  by  bio- 
logists, used  to  go  habitually  on  all-fours.  Perhaps  those 
of  us  who  show  a  vain  and  supercilious  disposition  have 
inherited  our  failings  from  the  first  anthropoid  ape  that 
assumed  an  erect  position.  He,  no  doubt,  thought  he 
was  superior  to  his  brother  apes;  and  probably  he  was 
so,  though  only  because  the  erect  posture  gave  him 
power  to  do  things  that  to  them  were  impossible.  The 
two  main  objections  to  the  k'o-t'ou  were,  firstly,  that  it 
was  humiliating;  secondly,  that  Christians  knelt  only  to 
God.  Perhaps  it  might  be  argued  that  these  statements 
contradict  each  other;  in  any  case  they  seem  to  result 
from  confused  ideas.  The  European  goes  on  one  knee 
to  a  king ;  but  he  will  not  go  on  both  knees,  because  he 
does  that  only  when  he  is  addressing  his  God !  Is  king- 
ship, then,  equivalent  to  a  moiety  of  Godhead?' 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  question  of  the  k'o-t'ou  because, 
so  far  as  I  know.  Western  writers  have  never  succeeded 
in  looking  at  the  matter  from  the  Chinese  standpoint. 
Most  of  them  seem  to  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  the 
Chinese  court  officials  who  tried  to  insist  on  the  per- 
formance of  this  ceremony  by  Western  visitors  were 
making  a  deliberate  attempt  to  humiHate  and  degrade 
them,  whereas  nothing  of  the  kind  was  intended — not, 

^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  practice  of  kneeling  at  prayer  is  a  convention 
of  comparatively  modern  date.  The  ancient  Greeks  prayed  standing. 
The  Romans  also  stood  upright,  covering  the  head  with  the  toga  and 
holding  the  palms  of  their  hands  upward  to  heaven.  Even  the  Jews — 
"the  chosen  people  of  God" — generally  stood  erect  when  they  prayed 
to  Jehovah. 


Christian  Ethics  and  Social  Prejudices  22^] 

at  least,  until  men's  minds  had  become  embittered  and 
Chinese  pride  had  been  harshly  wounded  by  disastrous 
foreign  warfare  and  by  what  the  Chinese  Government 
regarded  as  the  extravagant  pretensions  of  overbearing 
foreigners.  Now  that  China  is  striving  to  assert  her 
right  to  a  place  of  dignity  among  the  nations  she  is 
finding  it  necessary  to  give  up  many  old  customs — some 
of  them  harmless  enough  in  themselves — that  have 
hitherto  contributed  to  emphasise  her  singularity.  The 
k'o-t'ou  is  doubtless  one  of  the  ceremonies  which,  in 
State  and  official  functions,  at  least,  are  doomed  to  ex- 
tinction. Our  Western  friends,  knowing  this,  assure  us 
that  when  this  peculiar  custom  is  abolished  we  shall 
experience  a  healthy  increase  of  self-respect.  Why 
should  we  gain  self-respect  on  giving  up  a  custom  that 
never  humiliated  us.^^ 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    SABBATH 

A  MATTER  that  demands  some  comment  in  con- 
nection with  the  rules  and  methods  of  the  Christ- 
ian missionaries  in  China  is  their  insistence  on  the  strict 
observance  of  the  so-called  Sabbath  day.  **  We  require 
all  our  members,"  says  a  prominent  missionary,  ^'to 
keep  the  Lord's  day;  not  half  the  day,  as  the  Roman 
Catholics  do,  but  the  whole  day;  if  they  have  shops 
they  must  close  them,  and  if  they  are  at  work  for  a 
master  they  must  make  an  arrangement  by  which  they 
can  have  the  day  off. "  ^  This  statement  of  Sabbatarian 
policy  might  be  made  with  equal  truth,  so  far  as  I  can 
ascertain,  of  nearly  all  the  Protestant  missions  in  China, 
though  there  are  some  missionaries,  we  may  hope,  who 
would  have  thought  it  hardly  necessary  to  make  a 
comparison  between  their  own  righteousness  and  the 
imperfections  of  those  poor  deluded  half-Christians,  or 
anti-Christians,  the  Roman  Catholics. 

It  is  almost  pathetic  to  observe  with  what  dogged 
persistence  Protestant  Christianity  clings  to  the  old 
Egyptian,  Babylonian,  and  Israeli tish  taboo  with  re- 
spect to  the  Sabbath,  as  though  it  were  really  an  essen- 
tial part  of  true  religion  that  one  day  out  of  seven  should 
be  consecrated  to  God  and  idleness.  It  is  often  urged 
that  this  supposed  command  of  the  Deity  was  based  on 
the  fact  that  a  rest  every  seventh  day  is  a  physical 
necessity.      This  is  perhaps  implied  in  the  emphasis 

^  China's  Millions,  July,  1909,  p.  loi. 

228 


The  Sabbath  229 

laid  on  the  idea  of  rest  in  the  fourth  Commandment 
itself,  as  given  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Exodus.^ 
The  twelfth  verse  of  the  twenty-third  chapter  contains 
the  same  injunction  in  different  words.  *'  Six  days  thou 
shalt  do  thy  work,  and  on  the  seventh  day  thou  shalt 
rest:  that  thine  ox  and  thine  ass  may  rest,  and  the  son 
of  thy  handmaid,  and  the  stranger,  may  be  refreshed.'* 
But  immediately  preceding  these  words  are  two  verses 
which  help  us  to  perceive  that  some  peculiar  sanctity 
(or  taboo)  attached  to  seven  as  a  number.  "And  six 
years  thou  shalt  sow  thy  land  and  shalt  gather  in  the 
fruits  thereof.  But  the  seventh  year  thou  shalt  let 
it  rest  and  lie  still  that  the  poor  of  thy  people  may  eat, 
and  what  they  leave  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  eat.  ^  In 
like  manner  thou  shalt  deal  with  thy  vineyard  and  with 
thy  oliveyard."^  It  is  now  recognised  by  scholars 
that  the  Sabbath  was  originally  nothing  more  than  an 
"unlucky  day** — a  day  on  which  it  was  supposed  to  be 
dangerous  to  engage  in  any  serious  employment.  In 
China  we  still  have  many  tabooed  days,  just  as  we 
have  many  days  which  are  regarded  as  supremely  lucky. 
Most  of  our  "Sabbaths,"  however,  vary  from  year  to 
year,  and  are  determined  by  experts  annually  in  ad- 
vance. One  of  the  most  recent  English  authorities  on 
the  Hebrew  religion  not  only  fully  accepts  the  taboo 
theory  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  but  describes  it  as  hav- 
ing been  originally  a  "crass  superstition. " ^    Another 

^Exod.  XX.,  8-11.  See  also  Exod.  xxxi.,  13-17.  Pascal  suggested 
that  the  Sabbath  was  only  intended  to  be  a  sign  in  memory  of  the  escape 
from  Egypt.  "Therefore  it  is  no  longer  necessary,  since  Egypt  must  be 
forgotten."  Huxley  (in  Science  and  Hebrew  Tradition,  Eversley  ed.,  p. 
341)  points  out  the  significance  of  the  discrepancy  between  the  Deutero- 
nomic  version  of  the  fourth  Commandment  and  that  which  stands  in 
Exodus.  ^  Cf.  also  Lev.  xxv.,  2-8. 

3  Hebrew  Religion  to  the  Establishment  of  Judaism  under  Ezra,  by  W.  E. 
Addis,  M.  A.,  pp.  86  segi. 


230  The  Sabbath 

recognised  authority  on  comparative  religion,  Salomon 
Reinach,  has  said  of  the  legislation  and  morality  of 
the  Pentateuch  that  it  is  ''impregnated  with  taboo." 
''The  Sabbath/'  he  says,  "was  originally  a  taboo  day, 
that  is  to  say,  an  imlucky  day ;  no  one  was  to  work  on 
that  day,  nor  to  make  his  servant  or  his  beast  of  burden 
work,  for  they  would  nm  the  risk  of  hurting  themselves 
or  spoiling  their  work."^ 

Taboos  always,  or  nearly  always,  have  a  reasonable 
or  plausible  origin,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the 
seventh  day  of  the  week  came  to  be  tabooed  just  be- 
cause people  had  discovered  that  a  periodical  rest  was, 
on  the  whole  and  as  a  general  rule,  physically  beneficial 
for  man  and  beast.  But  if  Christians  wish  to  show 
that  the  obligation  to  rest  on  the  seventh  day  was  re- 
vealed by  the  Deity,  they  must  admit  that  the  supposed 
revelation  to  Moses  was  not  an  original  revelation ;  for 
it  has  been  clearly  proved  that  the  seventh-day  rest  was 
not  peculiar  to  Judaism.  Moreover,  though  the  injunc- 
tion to  rest  from  labour  once  a  week  may  be  accepted 
as  a  rough-and-ready  rule  for  practical  guidance,  it  is 
obvious  that,  unless  all  men  were  exactly  equal  in 
respect  of  health,  strength,  and  age,  and  all  engaged  in 
doing  precisely  similar  work  under  precisely  similar 
conditions,  it  would  be  impossible  to  lay  down  any 
universal  rule  as  to  when  work  ought  to  be  laid  down 
and  when  resumed.  It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that 
all  men  are  simultaneously  reduced  to  a  state  of  physical 

» Orpheus  (New  York:  Putnam) ,  pp.  178-9;  see  also  p.  19 :  **  It  is  often 

said  .  .  .  that  the  Jews  observed  the  Sabbath  because  their  lawgiver, 
Moses,  knew  that  man  requires  a  day  of  rest.  Moses,  if  he  existed,  knew 
nothing  of  the  sort;  he  merely  codified  an  ancient  taboo,  according  to 
which  one  day  in  the  week  was  considered  unpropitious,  and  unfit  for, 
useful  and  productive  work. "  That  the  taboo  was  a  very  ancient  one, 
and  had  originated  in  barbarous  times,  may  be  assumed  from  the  savage 
penalty  attached  to  its  violation  in  Exod.  xxxi.,  14-15. 


The  Sabbath  231 

exhaustion  at  the  end  of  every  sixth  day,  and  go  through 
a  sudden  and  simultaneous  process  of  recuperation  on 
the  non-working  day  that  follows.  It  has  been  found 
expedient  in  most  countries — especially  under  the  stress 
of  modern  industrial  conditions — to  ordain  a  periodical 
day  of  rest  that  shall  apply  to  the  whole  working  com- 
munity. Business  would  be  disorganised  if  every  one 
took  his  "  day  off  "  in  accordance  with  his  real  or  fancied 
physical  requirements;  and  one  day's  rest  to  six  days* 
work  seems  to  be  as  fair  and  convenient  an  arrangement 
as  any  other  would  be,  with  the  special  advantage  of  its 
vague  association  in  Christian  minds  with  the  supposed 
will  of  God. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  if  Christianity  ever  becomes 
the  religion  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  people  of  China, 
the  Puritan  Sunday  may  not  be  a  feature  of  Chinese  life. 
Dr.  Conybeare  describes  the  Protestant  ''Sabbath'* 
as  "that  hypocritical  invention  of  Puritan  ignorance" 
which 

is  responsible  for  the  worst  and  most  degrading  features  of 
the  English  public-house  and  Scotch  whiskey-hell.  Nor  are 
the  minor  taboos  of  the  British  Sunday  less  curious  than 
those  of  any  South  Sea  Islander.  I  have  known  persons 
who  would  listen  on  it  to  the  melodies  of  Moody  and 
Sankey,  but  not  of  Schumann  or  Schubert;  would  knit, 
but  not  use  a  sewing-machine;  would  play  patience,  but 
not  whist;  draughts,  but  not  dominoes;  bagatelle,  but  not 
billiards;  who  would  fish,  but  not  shoot;  bicycle,  but  not 
row ;  row,  but  not  play  cricket  or  football ;  would  devour 
the  unedifying  legends  of  the  Jewish  Patriarchs,  but  not 
read  The  Times  or  one  of  Thackeray's  novels ;  would 
freely  talk  scandal,  but  not  join  in  a  political  or  ethical 
discussion.  ^ 

^  F.  C.  Conybeare's  Myth,  Magic,  and  Morals,  pp.  365-6. 


232  The  Sabbath 

No,   we  Chinese  do  not  ask  to  be  endowed  with  the 
privileges  and  responsibihties  of  the  British  Sabbath. 

The  most  curious  point  about  the  Christian  day  of 
rest  which  Protestants,  and  especially  evangelical  mis- 
sionaries, are  so  fond  of  describing  as  the  ^'Lord's  day" 
and  the  "Sabbath,"  is  that  the  day  in  question  has  no 
special  right  to  either  of  those  names.  The  Jewish 
Sabbath,  as  every  one  knows,  was  Saturday,  the  seventh 
day  of  the  week,  and  it  was  regarded  as  the  Lord's  day 
because  on  that  day  he  rested  after  his  construction 
of  the  material  universe.  Why  holiness  came  to  be 
attached  to  the  conception  of  resting  rather  than  of  work- 
ing is  a  question  that  seems  to  require  some  elucidation. 
Whatever  the  explanation  of  this  point  may  be,  it  was 
not  till  after  Christianity  had  become  definitely  es- 
tranged from  Judaism  that  the  first  day  in  the  week  took 
the  place  of  the  seventh  as  the  holy-day  for  Christians.^ 
It  is  a  curious  example  of  the  inconsistency  of  the  aver- 
age Christian,  or  rather  of  the  uninquiring  docility  with 

^  "Old  Greek  and  Latin  writers  equally  testify  to  the  widespread  ob- 
servance of  the  Sabbath,  especially  in  ancient  Rome.  There  was  no- 
thing distinctively  Christian  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  Christians,  in 
order  to  spite  the  Jews,  very  soon  began  to  violate  the  Sabbath;  and  in 
time  substituted  their  Sunday  for  it  as  the  day  for  holding  the  synaxis 
or  ecclesia  (church  or  assembly),  at  which  the  Jewish,  and  later  on  the 
Christian,  Scriptures  were  read,  and  prayer  and  praise  offered.  Efforts 
were  made  in  the  Church  sporadically,  from  the  fourth  century  on,  to 
suspend  work  on  Sundays,  but  these  never  succeeded;  and  in  Southern 
Europe  there  is  no  day  of  the  week  on  which  man  and  brute  are  harder 
tasked.  Had  the  leaders  of  early  Christian  opinion  been  inspired  by 
feelings  of  humanity,  ajid  not  by  mere  theological  hatred,  they  would 
have  encouraged  instead  of  discouraged  the  Jewish  day  of  rest.  They 
destroyed  the  thing,  though  they  could  not  destroy  the  name.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  the  popular  Governments  of  France 
and  Italy,  which  both  equally  lie  under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  are 
seeking  to  enforce  by  legislation  a  day  of  rest  for  man  and  beast.  But 
for  the  cantankerous  opposition  of  the  Church,  the  result  aimed  at  in 
such  legislation  might  have  been  secured  eighteen  centuries  ago. " — 
Conybeare's  Myth,  Magic,  and  Morals,  pp.  157-8. 


The  Sabbath  233 

which  he  dutifully  accepts  and  thinks  he  believes  the 
theological  notions  and  precepts  upon  which  he  has 
been  brought  up  from  childhood,  that  though  he  is 
incessantly  imploring  God  to  have  mercy  upon  him  and 
incline  his  heart  to  keep  this  law — the  fourth  Command- 
ment— he  never  dreams  of  even  attempting  to  carry  out 
its  specific  injunction.  His  confusion  of  Saturday  and 
Sunday  is  surely  inexcusable,  for  the  Commandment 
emphatically  states  that  the  day  to  be  kept  holy  is  the 
seventh  day  of  the  week,  and  that  its  holiness  consists 
in  the  fact  that  *'in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and 
earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the 
seventh  day:  wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  seventh 
day  and  hallowed  it . "  The  early  Christians,  in  order  to 
differentiate  themselves  from  the  Jews,  abolished  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  among  themselves,  but  were  obliged  to 
retain  the  fourth  Commandment  because  it  was  en- 
shrined in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  supposed  that 
Sunday  was  chosen  as  the  Christian  holy-day  in  com- 
memoration of  Christ*s  resurrection,  which  was  be- 
lieved to  have  taken  place  on  that  day.^  Thus  the 
observance  of  Stmday  as  a  day  of  rest  and  piety  is 
derived,  not  from  any  ancient  quasi-divine  command- 
ment, but  from  a  regulation  made  in  their  own  initiative 
by  the  early  Christians,  who,  so  far  from  respecting  the 
real  Sabbath,  actually  abolished  it. 

But  even  if  Christendom  had  agreed  to  suppress  its 
hatred  of  the  Jews  to  the  extent  of  consenting  to  join 
them  in  keeping  holy  the  true  Sabbath,  it  is  diificidt  to 
see  how  twentieth-century  Christians  could  accept  the 
injunctions  and  doctrinal  statements  of  the  fourth  Com- 
mandment without  some  mental  bewilderment.  We 
are  entitled,  surely,  to  assume  that  even  bibliolaters  and 

^  See,  for  example,  Dr.  Rudolf  Schmid's  The  Scientific  Creed  of  a  Theo- 
logian (Eng.  trans.,  London,  1906),  p.  243. 


234  The  Sabbath 

the  most  conservative  of  theologians  have  totally  sur- 
rendered the  old  belief  that  the  world  was  created  in 
six  natural  days.  The  non-Christian,  reading  the  Bible 
without  any  preconceived  theory  of  its  infallibility,  is  dis- 
posed to  think  that  when  the  writer  of  Genesis  spoke  of 
seven  days  (six  days  of  creation  and  one  day  of  rest)  he 
either  meant  exactly  what  he  said — in  which  case,  as  a 
matter  of  scientific  fact,  he  happened  to  be  wrong — or 
was  merely  giving  literary  expression  to  an  old-world 
myth  which  he  never  intended  any  one  to  regard  as  a 
divine  revelation  of  truth.  The  orthodox  Christian, 
reading  the  Bible  with  the  firm  conviction  that  it  is  the 
infallible  Word  of  God,  provides  himself  and  his  fellow- 
Christians  with  the  explanation  that  the  six  days  of 
creation  meant  six  indefinitely-long  periods.^  What 
then  becomes  of  the  seventh  day?  The  accoimt  given 
in  Genesis  of  the  proceedings  of  each  working  "day" 
closes  with  a  reference  to  "the  evening  and  the  morn- 
ing," but  no  such  remark  is  made  in  connection  with 
the  seventh  "day."  This  has  given  rise  to  the  in- 
genious hypothesis  that  the  "day"  in  question  has  not 
yet  come  to  an  end.  The  six  ages  of  creation,  in  other 
words,  were  followed  by  a  seventh  age  in  which  we  are 
now  living.  It  must  surely  follow,  if  we  accept  this 
theory,  that,  so  far  as  humanity  is  concerned,  the  Sab- 
bath-day is  always  with  us;  to-morrow  never  comes ''; 
the  present  "day"  has  been  consecrated  to  repose 
by  Divine  fiat,  and  men  must  either  cease  to  work  or 
wilfully  defy  their  Maker. 

^  Though  since  the  explosion  of  the  bombshell  thrown  by  Essays  and 
Reviews  this  explanation  is  no  longer  regarded  with  complacence  except 
by  a  small  number  of  country  parsons  and  a  very  large  number  of 
missionaries. 

=  " '  Yes,  that 's  it,  *  said  the  Hatter,  with  a  sigh;  'it 's  always  tea-time, 
and  we  've  no  time  to  wash  the  things  between  whiles.'" — Alice  in 
Wonderland. 


The  Sabbath  235 

It  is  fairly  safe  to  assume  that  the  majority  of  Christ- 
ian missionaries  in  China  rarely  have  occasion  to  dis- 
cuss with  their  converts  the  historical  and  theological 
problems  connected  with  the  Christian  Simday.  In 
any  case,  they  would  doubtless  hold  that  in  the  long 
run  their  converts  would  derive  such  immense  material 
and  spiritual  benefit  from  a  rigid  observance  of  the 
Lord's  day  as  would  amply  compensate  them  for  any 
initial  inconvenience.  Yet  it  is  questionable  whether 
even  from  their  own  point  of  view  the  missionaries  are 
wise  in  insisting  on  a  rule  which,  after  all,  is  surely  of  very 
minor  importance.  On  a  river  in  the  province  of  Himan 
my  boatman  told  me  that  in  his  town  (I  think  it  was 
Hsiang-t'an)  there' were  several  English  and  American 
missionaries  who  had  made  some  converts  among  men 
of  his  own  class.  I  asked  him  why  he  also  did  not  be- 
come a  Christian.  **My  family  is  too  large,"  he  said. 
''The  foreigners  say  we  must  do  no  work  every  seventh 
day.  I  cannot  afford  that.  I  only  make  just  enough 
to  support  my  family  as  it  is. "  If  this  man  had  made 
the  same  remark  to  the  missionaries  as  he  made  to  me, 
they  would  doubtless  have  replied,  in  accordance  with 
the  common  practice,  that  he  need  anticipate  no  lack 
of  material  prosperity  as  a  result  of  Sunday  observance, 
or  at  any  rate  that  he  would  be  richly  repaid  later  on 
for  temporary  losses;  and  that,  as  regards  any  pressing 
material  wants,  "the  Lord  assuredly  would  provide." 
Unfortunately,  it  is  sometimes  the  case  that  the  Lord 
does  not  provide.  When  this  happens,  the  missionary 
will  say,  ''Your  faith  is  too  weak,"  or  "The  Lord  is 
punishing  you  for  your  past  sins,"  or  "The  Lord  is 
trying  you  as  he  tried  Job."  These  remarks  may,  or 
may  not,  satisfy  the  convert.  If  they  do  not,  he  will 
probably  relapse  into  heathendom,  and  regard  foreigners 
with  an  unfavourable  eye  from  that  day  forward.    When 


236  The  Sabbath 

a  missionary  feels  inclined  to  comfort  a  distressed  con- 
vert with  the  asstirance  that  *'The  Lord  will  help,'* 
**The  Lord  will  provide,"  he  should  be  careful  to  add 
that  the  Lord  may  not  help,  and  may  not  provide;  other- 
wise it  will  perhaps  happen  that  considerable  ill-feeling 
against  the  Western  faith  will  arise  among  ignorant 
people  who,  having  in  their  heart  of  hearts  believed  mis- 
sionaries to  be  a  class  of  potent  magicians  and  Christi- 
anity a  superior  kind  of  witchcraft,  are  driven  at  last 
to  the  disconcerting  conclusion  that  the  Christian  Deity 
shows  just  as  much  imaccoimtable  partiality  in  his 
allotment  of  good  and  evil  fortune,  and  just  as  many 
whimsical  prejudices  in  dealing  with  the  himible  peti- 
tions of  his  devotees,  as  the  despised  and  discredited 
divinity  whose  battered  image  with  its  broken  nose 
stands  amid  shattered  roof -tiles  and  the  cold  ashes  of 
incense-sticks  in  the  neighbouring  Taoist  temple.  Before 
rashly  promising  a  Chinese  convert  that  God  will  always 
come  to  his  help  or  answer  his  prayers,  the  missionary 
should  never  forget  that  he  is  not  addressing  one  of  his 
own  Christian-bred  coimtrymen,  who  will  know  how  to 
make  allowances  for  pious  hyperbole,  but  that  he  is 
making  a  most  serious  statement  which  in  all  probability 
will  be  taken  au  pied  de  la  lettre  by  his  Chinese  listener. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  many  Chinese  have  become 
Christians  owing  to  what  can  hardly  be  described  other- 
wise than  as  a  misunderstanding.  They  are  assured 
that  after  the  reception  of  the  gospel  they  will  experience 
great  peace  and  happiness,  and  they  are  also  assured, 
on  the  strength  of  Christ's  own  words,  that  they  may 
quite  safely  coimt  on  receiving  divine  answers  to  their 
prayers.  They  are,  as  a  rule,  extremely  superstitious, 
highly  credulous  of  the  mysterious  and  uncanny  powers 
supposed  to  be  wielded  by  Western  foreigners,  and  they 
do  not  realise  (how  can  they?)  that  the  happiness  prom- 


The  Sabbath  237 

ised  them  may  be  only  spiritual,  perhaps  tempered  by 
great  material  misery,  and  that  the  answers  to  their 
prayers  may  take  a  highly  disagreeable  form. 

Many  an  Englishman  who  is  **down  on  his  luck"  and 
is  told  by  a  sympathetic  friend  that  God  will  watch  over 
him  and  bring  him  release  from  his  woes  regards  the 
remark  as  nothing  more  than  a  neighbourly  attempt  at 
consolation,  and  attributes  no  more  serious  importance 
to  it  than  if  his  friend  had  said  it  was  raining  hard  to- 
day and  would  perhaps  be  fine  to-morrow.  The  Chi- 
nese Christian  does  not  dismiss  such  a  remark  so  lightly ; 
he  supposes  it  to  be  oracular,  and  he  looks  for  its  fulfil- 
ment. If,  after  long  waiting,  he  finds  that  no  fulfil- 
ment comes,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  will  pay  a 
stealthy  visit  to  the  old  temple  with  the  broken  roof, 
and  cause  whiffs  of  scented  smoke  once  more  to  curl 
upward  toward  the  broken  nose  of  the  battered  Taoist 
image. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

RELIGION,  MAGIC,  AND  WORD-SPELLS 

IT  has  been  mentioned  that  there  are  Chinese  who 
regard  missionaries  as  magicians  and  Christianity 
as  a  kind  of  witchcraft.  In  my  observations  on  mission- 
ary methods  I  have  tried  to  base  my  criticisms  as  far  as 
possible  on  the  acknowledged  writings  of  the  mission- 
aries themselves,  and  if  in  a  matter  of  this  kind  their 
published  reports  are  somewhat  lacking  in  evidence  it 
should  be  remembered  that  they  are  naturally  unwil- 
ling to  represent  their  converts  or  inquirers  as  hold- 
ing any  but  lofty  and  dignified  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  faith.  In  spite  of  this  fact,  a  perusal  even  of 
the  most  recent  missionary  journals  will  enable  us  to 
perceive  not  only  that  non-Christian  Chinese  regard 
Christianity  with  a  curious  mixture  of  fear  and  super- 
stitious respect,  but  that  there  are  converts  who  in 
adopting  Christianity  have  done  so  imder  the  vague 
impression  that  the  foreign  ** magic"  is  more  potent 
than  the  native.  One  party  of  native  evangelists  entered 
a  village  in  which  *'they  found  the  people  in  awful 
poverty.  They  could  not  buy  books  [that  is  to  say, 
they  could  not  afford  the  Christian  literature  offered  for 
sale],  so  the  young  men  gave  Gospels  and  tracts  to  those 
who  would  accept  them.  After  a  short  time  the  people 
brought  the  books  back;  they  had  not  dared  to  open 
them  for  fear  of  some  subtle  drug  between  the  pages  that 

238 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells      239 

would  bewitch  them,''''-  A  native  evangelist  met  a 
coolie  on  the  road  and  asked  him  ''if  he  had  ever  heard 
of  Jesus,  and  if  he  woiild  accept  a  Gospel  and  tract. 
The  coolie  was  so  frightened  that  he  dropped  his  load 
and  ran,  while  his  poor  wife  sat  down  by  the  load  and 
cried.  "^  Another  missionary,  describing  the  effect  of 
certain  revival  meetings,  writes  thus: 

In  one  place  in  Manchuria  the  power  of  God  was  so 
terrible  amongst  the  people  that  the  heathen  said  to  one 
another :  * '  Their  Spirit  has  come !  Their  Spirit  has  come ! ' ' 
Elsewhere,  the  Chinese  say:  "The  missionaries  are  first- 
rate  devils,  and  the  Chinese  who  believe  their  doctrines 
are  second-rate  devils."  But  in  Manchuria  they  say: 
''Their  Spirit  has  come!"^ 

Yet  another  missionary,  describing  his  travels  in  the 
province  of  Chehkiang,  writes  thus: 

In  one  village  we  were  entertained  by  an  old  Christian 
woman.  On  approaching  her  house  the  first  thing  that 
one  noticed  was  a  board  above  the  window  with  four 
characters  I-K'ao  Z6ng-ti  ("Trust  in  God")  painted  on  it; 
and  above  the  door,  just  where  the  heathen  stick  up  a 
Taoist  charm  to  ward  off  evil  influences,  there  was  a  strip 
of  red  paper  with  the  characters  Yi-mo-nen-li  ("Emmanuel") 
written  on  it."* 

Does  not  this  look  as  though  the  old  Christian  woman 
had  simply  exchanged  one  form  of  superstition  for 
another?  It  would  be  interesting  to  ascertain  what — if 
any — definite  ideas  were  associated  in  her  mind  with 
the  word  Emmanuel,  s     Needless  to  say,  I  have  no 

I  China's  Millions,  March,  1910,  p.  41.  ^  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.,  July,  1909,  p.  III.  "  Ibid.,  April,  1909,  p.  55- 

s  The  woman  had  presumably  read  Matt,  i.,  23;  but  had  her  instract- 
ors  taken  care  to  tell  her  what  modem  critics  have  to  say  about  Isa. 
vii.,  14?  If  not,  why  did  they  allow  her  to  labour  under  a  misappre- 
hension? 


240      Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

means  of  knowing  what  the  particular  Taoist  charm  was 
that  had  given  place  to  the  Christian  scroll,  but  if  it 
resembled  the  great  majority  of  Taoist  charms — such 
as  those  constantly  issued  in  large  numbers  by  the 
*' Heavenly  Master"  of  Taoism  and  sold  to  the  Taoist 
faithful  like  papal  indulgences — it  probably  consisted 
of  one  or  two  meaningless  "characters'*  the  fearful  and 
wonderful  shape  of  which  was  supposed  to  cause  the 
immediate  withdrawal  of  uncanny  influences  and  nox- 
ious demons.  Buddhist  charms  are  in  some  localities 
even  more  popular  than  Taoist  ones.  There  lies  before 
me  at  the  present  moment  a  charm  which  is  supposed  to 
represent  the  mystic  syllable  OM  which  of  recent  years 
has  become  more  or  less  familiar  to  Western  dabblers  in 
certain  phases  of  "New  Thought**  and  "Occtiltism.*' 
The  scroll  now  before  me  contains,  in  addition  to  a 
drawing  of  the  charm  itself,  a  Chinese  inscription  which 
I  piay  translate  thus: 

I-ching  [this  is  the  name  of  a  famous' Buddhist  pilgrim 
^  who  travelled  from  China  to  the  Buddhist  Holy  Land  in 
the  seventh  century  of  the  Christian  era]  discovered  in 
India  this  singular  word  OM.  Wherever  this  word  is 
displayed  or  spoken  all  devils  and  spirits  who  hear  or  see 
it  will  be  struck  with  panic. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Christian  woman  of  Cheh- 
kiang  did  not  tear  down  her  heathen  charms  without 
having  first  reasoned  herself  into  the  belief  that  the  mys- 
terious phrase  Yi-mo-nen-li  would  be  no  less  efficacious 
than  they  had  been  in  protecting  her  from  the  machina- 
tions of  the  rascally  demons  that  were  wont  to  infest 
her  neighbourhood.  To  admit  this  is  by  no  means 
necessarily  to  conclude  that  the  woman  was  not,  in  her 
way,  a  sincere  Christian.     In  attributing  a  mysterious 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells       241 

efficacy  to  a  word  or  a  name  she  was  merely  giving 
expression  to  a  superstition  which  has  probably  ap- 
peared in  connection  with  every  religious  system  that 
the  world  has  seen  and  is  certainly  not  extinct  even  in 
Western  Christendom  to-day.  ^ 

There  seems  to  be  some  ineradicable  tendency  in  the 
human  mind,  at  all  times  and  among  all  races,  to  clothe 
certain  sounds  or  syllables,  uttered  or  written  under 
conditions  of  ceremonial  solemnity,  with  deep  mystic 
meaning  or  spiritual  potency.  "^  The  wizard-spells  of 
fairyland,  as  every  child  knows,  were  meaningless  rig- 
maroles which  had  efficacy  only  if  they  were  pronounced 
with  absolute  correctness  and  with  the  appropriate 
ceremonies.  The  magic  door  would  remain  immovably 
closed  to  all  but  the  enchanter  who  remembered  his 
"Open  Sesame.**  Sometimes  the  mystic  word  is  the 
hidden  name  of  a  god,  the  theory  being  that  in  the  god's 
secret  name  resides  his  soul,  or  a  portion  of  his  divinity, 
and  that  the  man  who,  by  magical  or  other  means,  has 
acquired  knowledge  of  the  name  is  thereby  in  a  position 


^  This  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  magic  Is  identical  with  primitive 
religion.  That  the  two  had  a  common  origin  is  a  somewhat  prevalent 
view,  but  it  is  quite  a  tenable  hypothesis  that  they  arose  independently 
and  proceeded  on  different  lines,  which,  however,  occasionally  crossed 
each  other.  (See  J.  H.  Leuba's  article  in  The  Sociological  Review,  Jan., 
1909.)  On  the  other  hand,  the  belief  that  "magic  and  religion  are  only 
diversified  forms  of  myth,  which  is  science  in  formation  "  is  held  by  more 
than  one  competent  authority.  (See  V.  Henry's  La  Magie  dans  VInde 
[Paris,  1909].  The  quotation  is  from  a  review  in  The  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  July,  1909,  p.  496.)  The  question  of  the  connection  between 
magic  and  religion  has  also  been  dealt  with  by  Wundt,  Mauss,  and 
Hubert.  (See  article  by  F.  B.  Jevons  in  The  Sociological  Review,  April, 
1908.) 

2  "Speaking  the  right  words,  and  pronouncing  the  right  name  consti- 
tuted, together  with  the  correct  ceremony  and  the  bringing  of  the  right 
sacrifice,  the  conditions  upon  which  depends  the  success  of  the  priest  in 
the  incarnation  ritual." — Jastrow,  Religion  oj  Babylonia  and  Assyria^ 
p.  292. 

16 


242    Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

to  guide  or  control  the  divine  will.  ^  Even  cities  seem  to 
have  had  their  hidden  names,  known  only  to  the  initi- 
ated. Rome  itself  is  said  to  have  possessed  a  sacred 
name  which  has  not  been  discovered  to  this  day. 
The  people  of  many  races  existing  at  the  present  time 
— including  the  Chinese — have  in  addition  to  their 
ordinary  names  private  ones  which  are  used  only  by 
their  nearest  relatives.^  "The  modern  logical  view  of 
names,"  says  Dr.  Famell,^  *'as  merely  indifferent 
speech-symbols  which  can  be  changed  without  affecting 
the  essence  of  the  things,  was  by  no  means  the  old- 
world  view.  The  formula  nomina  sunt  numina  was 
valid  in  all  the  old  religions  of  the  Mediterranean  area, 
including  earlier  and  even  later  Christianity:  the 
divine  name  was  felt  to  be  part  of  the  divine  essence 
and  itself  of  supernatural  potency."  In  a  later 
passage  this  well-informed  anthropologist  remarks 
that 

in  an  early  metaphysical  theory  of  the  origin  of  things, 
which  in  its  harmonious  self-contradiction  reaches  quite 
to  the  level  of  Hegelian  philosophy,  the  universe  is  said  to 
have  come  into  being,  and  the  first  god  himself  effects  his 
own  creation  by  the  utterance  of  his  own  portentous 
name:  in  the  beginning  was  the  name.  .  .  .  And  these 
facts  of  old-world  religion  and  religious  logic  cast  a  new 

^  A  well-known  example  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  prayers  to  Osiris 
recorded  in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead.  The  dead  man  is  supposed 
to  begin  by  addressing  Osiris  thus:  "  I  know  thee,  and  I  know  thy  name, 
and  I  know  the  names  of  the  forty-two  gods, "  etc. 

2  "The  Indians  of  British  Columbia  have  a  great  horror  of  telling  their 
names.  Among  the  Algonquins  a  person's  real  name  is  communicated 
only  to  his  nearest  relations  and  dearest  friends;  the  outer  world  ad- 
dresses him  by  a  kind  of  nickname." — Lord  Avebury,  Peace  and 
Happiness,  p.  220.  See  also  Skeat's  Malay  Magic,  p.  341  (Macmillan, 
1900);  and  (more  especially)  Frazer's  Golden  Bough  (2nd  ed.),  vol.  i.,  pp. 

403-447- 

3  The  Evolution  of  Religion,  p.  32  (Williams  &  Norgate,  1905). 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells    243 

light  on  the  name-formula  which  close  most  of  the  prayers 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  which  are  words  of  power  to 
speed  the  prayer  home ;  and  though  the  modern  conscious- 
ness may  often  be  unaware  of  this  mystic  function  of 
theirs,  we  may  beheve  that  it  was  more  clearly  recognised 
in  the  early  days  of  Christianity,  for  in  the  Apocryphal 
Acts  of  St.  John  we  find  a  long  list  of  mythical  names  and 
titles  attached  to  Christ  giving  to  the  prayer  much  of  the 
tone  of  an  enchantment.  .  .  .  Even  the  Jewish  service, 
which  we  still  use  on  Ash  Wednesday,  employs  curse- 
formulse  in  which  there  is  no  immediate  reference  to  God, 
and  they  may  have  been  regarded  originally  as  having  an 
independent  efficacy.  ^ 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  Western  critics  should  move 
into  less  fragile  houses  than  they  at  present  occupy  be- 
fore they  begin  to  throw  stones  at  Chinese  Buddhists 
for  their  repetition  of  meaningless  names  and  words 
(often  transliterated  from  Sanskrit)  or  to  denoimce  the 
Taoists  for  their  contemptible  belief  in  written  spells 
and  exorcisms.  As  already  indicated,  there  is  some 
reason  to  believe  that  there  are  people  in  the  Western 
hemisphere  to-day  who,  not  content  with  the  charms 
and  incantations  provided  by  their  own  many-sided 
religious  system,  are  by  no  means  unwilling  to  borrow 
from  the  word-magic  of  the  East.  A  book  which  is 
representative  of  a  rapidly -increasing  section  of  modern 
Western  literature  contains  the  following  enlightening 
description  of  a  process  that  is  to  lead  to  mental  tran- 
quillity: 

You  may  fix  the  mind  upon  the  tip  of  the  nose  or  upon 
the  tongue,  and  so  experience  a  sort  of  absorption  in  the 
particular  enjoyment  upon  which  you  happen  to  be  medi- 
tating. Again,  you  may  fix  the  attention  upon  the  heart, 
and  imagine  that  you  see  a  lotus-like  form.  .  .  .    This 

^  Op.  cit.,  pp.  188, 190, 197. 


244    Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

you  may  think  of  as  turning  towards  you,  as  you  breathe 
gently  and  rhythmically,  whilst  you  repeat  the  sacred 
word  OM.  Such  a  practice  as  this  will  have  a  very  tran- 
quillising  effect  upon  you.^ 

The  remarkable  properties  of  the  word  OM  in  con- 
nection with  the  exorcising  of  devils  were,  as  we  have 
seen,  fully  realised  thirteen  hundred  years  ago  by  the 
Chinese  pilgrim  I-ching,  and  Oriental  pride  should 
undoubtedly  be  gratified  by  this  unexpected  proof  that 
the  potency  of  the  charm  is  recognised  in  the  most 
progressive  of  Christian  lands  to-day. 

Setting  aside  all  consideration  of  the  ntmierous  words 
and  phrases  that  have  been  definitely  consecrated  to 
magical  or  quasi-magical  uses,  we  find  innumerable 
proofs  that  successful  sacerdotalism  has  always  derived 
no  small  part  of  its  influence  over  men's  minds  from  its 
skilful  manipulation  of  spoken  and  written  language. 
Priestcraft,  ever  ready  to  make  capital,  not  only  out  of 
the  weaknesses  of  man's  moral  nature,  but  also  out  of  his 
psychological  eccentricities,  has  always  encouraged  the 
popular  tendency  to  regard  words  as  something  more 
than  arbitrary  symbols  of  ideas.  The  Church  of  Rome 
was  not  the  first,  nor  was  it  the  last,  religious  organisa- 
tion that  deliberately  set  itself  to  hypnotise  men's 
minds  with  subtly- woven  words,  though  no  other  has 
done  it  with  the  same  extraordinary  skill.  It  was  not  a 
mere  sluggish  conservation  that  impelled  the  priests  of 
the  Middle  Ages  to  retain  the  use  of  the  Latin  language 

^  The  New  Thought  Manual,  by  R.  D.  Stocker,  No.  i,  1906,  p.  112. 
It  seems  doubtful  whether  Mr.  Stocker's  interpretation  of  the  uses  and 
quaHties  of  the  word  OM  would  meet  with  the  approval  of  the  priests  and 
lawgivers  of  Vedic  India.  For  their  own  views  on  the  subject  see  "The 
Laws  of  Manu,"  ii.,  74-76,  83,  84;  vi.,  70;  xi.,  249,  266  {Sacred  Books  of 
the  East,  vol.  xxv.).  Its  chief  claim  to  reverence  seems  to  have  consisted 
in  the  fact  that  it  was  supposed  to  bring  about  ceremonial  purity. 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells     245 

for  liturgical  purposes  in  countries  where  Latin  had 
ceased  to  be  a  spoken  tongue.  To  this  day  we  find 
that  the  Christian  worshipper — though  he  be  a  Protest- 
ant— in  whom  scarcely  any  emotional  response  is 
awakened  even  by  the  excellent  English  version  of  the 
fine  hymn  **That  day  of  wrath,  that  dreadful  day"^ 
may  yet  be  profoundly  stirred  by  the  solemn  chanting 
of  the  Dies  Irae  in  the  original  Latin.  When  that  great 
and  brave  man  Sir  Walter  Scott  lay  dying,  it  was  not 
on  the  English  hymns  of  his  Protestant  childhood  that 
his  mind  dwelt  most  lovingly,  but  on  some  of  the  sombre 
chants  and  litanies  of  the  Roman  ritual  in  which,  as  his 
biographer  tells  us,  he  had  always  taken  delight.  ^  One 
of  his  favourites  was  the  sonorous 

"Stabat  mater  dolorosa 
Juxta  crucem  lacrymosa 
Dum  pendebat  Filius."^ 

During  my  boyhood  in  England  a  young  school- 
fellow of  mine  was  intensely  fascinated  by  the  romantic 
aspects  of  medievalism,  and  more  especially  by  the 
high-sounding  terminology  of  heraldry  and  ecclesiastic- 
ism.  He  filled  a  large  exercise-book  with  a  pencilled 
novel  of  which  the  title  was  The  Knight  of  Ravenglass; 
or.  The  Monk  of  Blackcomb.  The  knight  and  the  monk 
were,  I  remember,  one  and  the  same  person  acting  in 
two  different  capacities,  though  I  have  no  recollection 
of  the  circimistances  which  rendered  this  peculiar  ar- 
rangement possible.  Battles  and  tournaments  and 
knightly  escapades  were  introduced  chiefly  in  order  to 
give  the  juvenile  author  a  chance  to  talk  mysteriously 
of  gules,  vair  and  sable,  cinquefoils,  escallops  and  an- 

^  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  206. 

2  See  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  vol.  x.,  pp.  210  seg^. 

3  Cf.  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  117. 


246    Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

nulets,  honourable  ordinaries,  saltires  and  chevrons, 
wyvems  and  griffins,  and  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  chivalry.  (What  a  poor  thing  heraldry  would  be 
if  all  its  splendid  jargon  were  reduced  to  homely  Eng- 
lish !)  Castles  were  described  to  provide  an  excuse  for 
the  existence  of  moats  and  barbicans,  turrets  and  don- 
jon-keeps. Gloomy  monasteries  reared  their  frowning 
walls  so  that  the  reader  might  hear  whispered  secrets  of 
refectory  and  chapter-house,  cells  and  cloisters,  sub- 
priors  and  almoners,  begging  friars  and  Augustinian 
canons-regular,  and  hooded  Dominicans.  Monks  stalked 
solemnly  across  the  author's  pages  in  order  that  they 
might  have  opportunities  of  greeting  each  other  with  a 
Pax  vobiscum,  a  Benedictus  qui  venit  in  nomine  Dominiy 
or  a  Laus  Deo.  Had  my  young  friend  been  obliged  to 
modernise  all  his  technical  terms  and  omit  or  curtail 
his  ecclesiastical  phraseology,  he  would  have  thrown 
his  novel  aside  in  disgust :  it  was  the  words  themselves 
that  threw  their  weird  enchantment  over  him,  even 
more  effectually  than  the  things  that  the  words 
represented. 

''The  wizardry  of  theologian  and  magician,"  says  a 
recent  writer,  "has  lost  its  spell,  its  power  has  gone; 
men  have  awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  doctrines  of  the 
one  and  the  incantations  of  the  other  are  in  themselves 
only  words,  both  equally  harmless,  both  equally  without 
any  semblance  of  magical  power. '*^  The  wizardry  of 
words  has  not  yet,  indeed,  ceased  to  cast  spells  over  the 
minds  of  men,  nor  would  it  do  so  even  if  all  forms  of 
theology  were  to  become  totally  extinct;  for  there 
would  still  be  left  the  poets  and  orators  and  prose  artists 
and  other  word-magicians  whose  power  over  the  nobler 
emotions  of  mankind  will  never,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  pass 
away.     But  in  addition  to  the  loftier  forms  of  word- 

^  The  Rev.  B.  A.  Millard,  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1907,  p.  630. 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells     247 

magic'  (not  here  under  discussion)  which  have  given  us 
not  only  the  best  secular  literature  but  also  the  im- 
perishable liturgical  and  scriptural  poetry  of  Christian- 
ity and  some  other  religious  systems,  there  is  also  an 
immeasurably  inferior  magic  that  consists  of  little  more 
than  the  verbal  mannerisms  of  ecclesiasticism.  This, 
one  need  not  regret  to  observe,  is  fast  losing  its  once 
powerful  influence  over  cultured  minds.  All  the  more 
necessary  is  it  that  the  Christian  missionaries,  who  are 
not  always  among  the  wisest  or  most  cultured  of  their 
race  and  age,  should  be  restrained  from  attempting  to 
re-enslave  the  Chinese  intellect — now  trying  hard  to  set 
itself  free  from  native  superstitions — by  means  of  anti- 
quated spells  drawn  from  the  dusty  lumber-rooms  of 
Western  priestcraft.  The  Protestant  missionary  in 
China  affects  to  ridicule  the  practice  of  the  Romanists 
for  their  ceremonial  use  of  a  dead  language,  not  realis- 
ing that,  by  his  own  ritualistic  repetitions,  his  retention 
of  a  religious  vocabulary,  and  his  adherence  to  archaic 
words  and  crude  and  repulsive  metaphors  in  his  hymns 
and  prayers,  he  is  making  use  of  methods  that  do  not 
essentially  differ  from  those  of  the  Romanists.^  He 
gives  us  the  Christian  Bible  in  mediocre  Chinese:  yet, 
what  is  it  but  a  slavish  adoration  of  mere  sounds — a 
belief  in  the  spiritual  efficacy  of  words  as  such — that 

^  "  All  the  charm  of  all  the  Muses  often  flowering  in  a  lonely  word. " 
3  "Word-worship  is  the  perpetual  bane  of  the  book-learned,  who,  like 
other  men,  become  assimilated  to  what  they  work  in,  and  end  by  putting 
the  symbols  in  the  place  of  the  things  symboHsed.  Missionaries  seem  to 
suffer  from  two  forms  of  this  disease  of  the  learned.  One  is  exhibited  in 
an  array  of  phrases  transferred  from  archaic  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  Greek 
to  archaic,  but  very  beautiful,  English,  which  are  in  early  youth  com- 
mitted blindly  to  memory,  and  in  adult  life  worshipped,  the  little  idols 
being  kept  neatly  ranged  in  rows  in  little  cerebral  shrines,  dusted  and 
always  ready  to  be  brought  out.  The  other  form  is  the  worship  of 
words  in  general. " — Alexander  Michie,  Missionaries  in  China  (Tientsin, 
1693).     See  also  Sturt's  Idea  oj  a  Free  Church,  pp.  267-9. 


248    Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

impels  him  to  give  us  imcouth  transliterations  of  such 
names  as  Jehovah- Jireh  (Ye-ho-wa  I -la  in  Pekingese), 
Matthew  (Ma-t'ai),  and  Ebenezer  (I-pien-i-se-erh)?  It 
may  be  urged  that  the  very  nature  of  the  Chinese 
language  makes  it  impossible  to  adopt  any  other  system, 
but  this  excuse  is  quite  inadequate,  for  the  names  might 
at  least  be  abbreviated,  or  they  might  be  boldly  ex- 
changed for  names  that  are  not  repugnant  to  the  genius 
of  the  Chinese  language.  Praiseworthy  attempts  have 
recently  been  made,  indeed,  to  invent  a  new  abbrevi- 
ated system  of  transliteration,  which  would  give  the 
Bible  a  less  barbarous  appearance  to  Chinese  eyes  and 
also  make  it  more  pleasing  to  the  Chinese  ears;  but 
the  mere  suggestion  of  compromise  seems  to  be  shocking 
to  the  minds  of  the  more  rigid  type  of  evangelical  mis- 
sionary. ^  The  present  system  of  transliterating  script- 
ural names  in  full,  quite  regardless  of  whether  the 
Chinese  characters  selected  are  suitable  or  unsuitable 
for  use  as  personal  names,  reminds  an  educated  Chinese 
who  dips  into  a  Chinese  version  of  the  Bible  for  the  first 
time  of  the  cimibersome  and  imcouth  transliterations  of 
Sanskrit,  Tibetan,  and  Turki  soimds  which  are  to  be 
foimd  scattered  throughout  Chinese  Buddhistic  and 
topographical  works.  The  missionary's  desire  to  pre- 
serve the  original  sounds  of  biblical  names  while  giving 
them  a  Chinese  dress  is  not  a  peculiarly  European  foible. 
The  Chinese  Buddhist  monk,  when  translating  his 
Sanskrit  texts,  similarly  regarded  the  Buddhistic  nomen- 
clature as  having  a  quasi-magical  value,  and  as  too 
sacred  to  be  unnecessarily  tampered  with,  and  his  more 
or  less  faithful  transliterations  are,  from  the  modem 

*  For  some  of  the  recent  suggestions  that  have  been  made  by  mission- 
aries on  this  matter,  see  The  Chinese  Recorder,  April,  1909,  pp.  220-1; 
June,  1909,  pp.  345  seq.;  and  July,  1909,  pp.  408-9. 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells     249 

reader's  point  of  view,  one  of  the  most  disagreeable 
features  of  that  class  of  Chinese  literature.' 

Many  missionaries,  it  is  clear,  are  still  in  the  grip  of 
the  superstitious  notion  that  bibHcal  names  possess 
some  inherent  sanctity,  and  that  to  replace  them  by 
names  less  objectionable  to  Chinese  ears,  but  more  re- 
mote from  the  original  sounds,  would  be  to  commit  an 
act  of  impardonable  sacrilege.  An  indication  that 
biblical  or  saints'  names  have  a  magical  quality — 
or,  if  the  term  be  preferred,  a  sacred  quality — 
peculiar  to  themselves  is  afforded  by  the  exceedingly 
common  practice  of  saddling  Chinese  converts  with 
names  taken  either  from  the  Scriptures  or  from  the 
saints'  calendar.  The  same  practice,  indeed,  is  common 
enough  in  Europe  and  America,  and  was  especially  so 
during  the  early  days  of  Puritanism,^  but  in  the  West 
the  names  have  at  least  become  naturalised,  whereas 
they  have  not,  and  cannot  (owing  to  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Chinese  language),  become  naturalised  in  China. 
The  ordinary  Chinese  surnames  are,  of  course,  retained; 
thus  among  converts  to  Christianity  we  constantly 
meet  persons  who  describe  themselves  somewhat  ridicu- 
lously as  Jacob  Wang,  Matthew  Li,  Joseph  Ku,  Peter 
Hsii,  or  Mark  Chang.  Is  it  thought  that  the  convert 
Wang  Shou-li  cannot  be  a  faithful  Christian  unless  he 

'  The  whole  question  of  how  best  to  render  foreign  names  in  Chinese 
books  is  one  that  ought  to  be  thoroughly  considered  by  a  committee  of 
competent  native  scholars;  for  the  continual  increase  in  the  mass  of 
Western  literature  that  is  now  being  rendered  into  Chinese  makes  the 
matter  one  of  serious  Hnguistic  importance. 

2  "Will  not  posterity  say  that  our  modern  reformation  has  been  won- 
derfully dehcate  and  exact,  in  having  not  only  combated  errors  and  vices, 
and  filled  the  world  with  devotion,  humiHty,  obedience,  peace,  and  all 
sorts  of  virtue;  but  in  having  proceeded  so  far  as  to  quarrel  with  our 
ancient  baptismal  names  of  Charles,  Louis,  Francis,  to  fill  the  world  with 
Methusalehs,  Ezekiels,  and  Malachis,  names  of  a  more  spiritual  sound?" 
— Montaigne's  Essays:  "Of  Names." 


250     Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

changes  his  name  to  Jacob  Wang?  Is  it  supposed  that 
** heathen"  names  have  been  so  saturated  with  dia- 
boHcal  influences  that  they  are  proof  against  the  cleansing 
and  sanctifying  quahties  of  the  waters  of  Christian 
baptism?  In  many  cases  the  selection  of  names  seems 
to  be  based  on  a  belief  that  the  holy  attributes  of  the 
biblical  prophets  and  apostles  and  the  virtues  of  the 
medieval  saints  imparted  a  permanent  aroma  of  sanctity 
to  their  personal  names,  and  that  the  converts  who  are 
fortunate  enough  to  receive  such  names  in  baptism  will 
be  partakers  in  this  blessedness.  Thus  a  young  Tibetan 
lama  mentioned  by  the  Abbe  Hue  received  on  conver- 
sion  to  Christianity  the  significant  name  of  Paul,  and 
a  young  Chinese  Catholic  of  my  acquaintance  rejoices 
in  the  name  of  the  famous  missionary  Francis  Xavier. 
A  proof  that  the  early  Christians  attributed  miracu- 
lous powers  to  the  mere  name  of  Jesus,  regarded  as  a 
thing  separable  from  Jesus  himself,  may  be  found  in 
that  passage  of  the  New  Testament  where  we  are  told 
that  a  certain  person,  though  no  disciple  of  Jesus,  was 
nevertheless  successful  in  casting  out  devils  in  his  name.  ^ 
The  devils,  it  is  clear,  were  obliged  to  obey  the  miracle- 
worker  because,  though  not  himself  a  follower  of  the 
Nazarene,  he  had  made  himself  master  of  an  irresistible 
Christian  spell:  the  spoken  name  of  Jesus.  Super- 
stitions of  this  kind,  we  see,  take  an  unconscionable 
time  in  dying.  Do  not  Christian  priests  still  claim  the 
power  to  perform  miracles  on  ceremonial  occasions 
in  the  name  of  Christ  or  the  Holy  Trinity?  Do  not 
ordinary  Christian  laymen  exercise  a  similar  power 
when  they  ask  the  Deity  in  the  name  of  Christ  to  grant 
their  prayers?    And  have  we  not  seen  that  the  poor 

I  Luke  ix. ,  49.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  man  was  an  Essene.  If 
we  assume  the  accuracy  of  the  Gospel  account,  we  may  gather  from 
verse  50  that  Jesus  did  not  regard  the  man  as  a  hostile  rival. 


Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells     251 

Chinese  peasant  woman,  after  her  conversion  to  Christi- 
anity, exorcises  devils  by  displaying  a  name-charm 
obtained  from  the  Old  Testament? 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  reverence  for  holy 
names  as  such,  this  universal  word-worship,  must  have 
struck  deep  roots  into  human  nature,  for  we  find  it 
flourishing  in  all  ages  and  among  all  peoples,  and  as- 
sociated with  every  form  of  religion.^  The  Chinese 
pilgrim  toiling  up  a  rugged  mountain-path  to  some 
famous  cloud-girt  shrine  murmurs  unwearyingly  the 
sacred  name  of  Amitabha;  the  Tibetan,  twirling  his 
prayer-wheel  as  he  goes,  drones  in  a  deep  monotone  the 
spell  of  the  jewelled  lotus ;  the  disciple  of  Islam,  making 
his  pilgrimage  to  holy  Mecca,  bows  reverently  while 
he  utters  the  name  of  the  One  God  whose  prophet  is 
Mohammed;  the  pious  Catholic  on  bended  knee  tells 
his  beads  and  mutters  the  potent  name  of  the  Virgin 
Mother  of  God ;  the  Salvationist  clashes  his  loud  cymbals 
to  accompany  the  shouts  in  which  he  expresses  his 
jubilant  affection  for  a  celestial  General  Booth.  It  is 
a  jangled  music  of  prayer,  spell,  and  invocation  that 
rises  day  by  day  from  the  lips  and  hearts  of  men  to  the 
throne  of  the  Unknown  God.  It  includes  the  Omito  Fo 
of  the  Chinese,  the  Om  mane  padme  hum  of  the  Tibetan, 
the  Great  is  Allah  of  the  Mohammedan,  the  Ave 
Maria  of  the  Catholic,  the  Glory  Alleluia  of  the 
corybantic  Salvationist,  and  the  Yi-mo-nen-li  and 
Ye-ho-wa  of  the  Chinese  Christian.  Who  will  dare 
assert  from  his  own  knowledge  that  these  varied  cries, 
which  sound  so  discordant  on  earth,  do  not,  each  and  all, 


^"The  sound-image  of  a  sacred  name  at  which  'every  knee  shall 
bow,'  or  even  of  one  which  may  be  formed  in  the  mind  but  may  not  be 
uttered  by  the  lips,  has  more  power  at  the  moment  of  intensest  feeling 
than  the  realisation  of  its  meaning. " — Graham  Wallas,  Human  Nature 
in  Politics,  p.  71  (Constable,  1908). 


252      Religion,  Magic,  and  Word-Spells 

cause  the  harp-strings  of  the  angels  to  vibrate  and  thrill 
with  the  grandest  of  blended  harmonies?  As  to  that, 
alas!  we  have  nothing  to  say.  We  can  only  gaze  long- 
ingly starward,  and  wonder  why  it  is  that  the  ears  of 
man  are  deaf  to  the  music  of  the  spheres;  or  longingly 
earthward,  and  marvel  at  the  unplumbed  depths  of  the 
ocean  of  human  ignorance.  It  may  be  that  the  angels* 
fingers  are  nothing  but  cosmic  laws  playing  upon  the 
vibrating  ether ;  it  may  be,  after  all,  that  the  Unknown 
God  is  deaf  and  blind. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHURCHES,  CHURCH-BELLS,  AND  HYMNS 

WE  Chinese  who  have  been  so  often  derided  for 
our  unreasoning  conservatism  are  sometimes 
tempted  to  believe  that  Western  peoples  are  just  as 
blindly  prejudiced  as  ourselves  in  favour  of  their  own 
social  and  religious  customs  and  usages,  and  hardly 
more  competent  than  we  are  to  differentiate  between 
the  essential  and  the  merely  accidental  attributes  of  a 
high  civilisation.  This  being  so,  we  are  hardly  sur- 
prised to  find  that  when  engaged  in  introducing  their 
religious  system  into  a  heathen  land  like  China,  Euro- 
peans are  not  content  with  importing  the  simple  teach- 
ings attributed  to  the  Jewish  carpenter  whom  they 
believe  to  have  been  God,  nor  even  with  offering  us 
that  extraordinary  system  of  dogmatic  theology  with 
which  the  ingenuity  of  numberless  ecclesiastical  brains 
has  endowed  the  Western  world.  In  addition  to  this, 
they  consider  it  their  duty  to  press  upon  our  acceptance 
those  outward  and  visible  but  certainly  unessential 
forms  and  modes  of  religious  expression  which  in  the 
course  of  many  centuries  have  grown  up  on  Western 
soil,  and  have  survived  through  the  ages  by  constantly 
adapting  themselves  (more  or  less  successfully)  to  the 
ever-changing  religious  needs  of  Western  peoples. 
Certain  types  of  architecture,  music,  hymnology,  prayer- 
formularies,  liturgical  services,  schemes  of  salvation, 
and  confessions  of  faith  are  regarded,  seemingly,  as  so 

253 


254  Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

closely  interwoven  with  the  teachings  of  the  great  op- 
ponent of  Pharisaism  that  to  modify  them  in  any  im- 
portant particular  as  a  concession  to  the  alien  taste  and 
culture  of  an  Eastern  race  would  be  like  tampering  with 
the  very  sources  of  divine  truth.  An  observant  Chinese 
who  has  spent  some  years  in  the  West  comes  to  realise 
something,  no  doubt,  of  the  tender  and  holy  associations 
that  cluster  round  the  glorious  cathedral-towers  and 
parish  churches  of  Europe ;  and  if  he  happens  to  possess 
a  good  ear  he  will  learn  to  appreciate  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  much  of  the  music  that  he  hears  in  those 
sacred  buildings,  even  if  it  fail  to  awaken  within  him 
a  strong  religious  as  distinct  from  an  emotional  and 
aesthetic  response.  But  the  more  he  is  able  to  admire 
these  and  other  forms  of  religious  expression  in  their 
European  environment,  the  less  inclined  will  he  be  to 
sympathise  with  the  efforts  of  those  who  wish  to 
transfer  them  to  the  soil  of  China. 

We  have  already  considered  some  of  the  character- 
istics of  Western  Christianity  that  meet  with  no  emo- 
tional or  intellectual  response  from  the  vast  bulk  of 
the  Chinese  people.  Let  us  turn  our  attention  to  a  few 
more  of  these.  It  is  probably  beyond  any  man's  power 
to  estimate  the  vastness  of  the  inimical  forces  set  in 
motion  against  the  Christian  propaganda  merely  by 
the  scandals  that  have  occurred  over  the  acquisition 
of  sites  for  mission-buildings  (the  buildings  when  they 
are  erected  being  generally  of  an  offensively  foreign 
style  of  architecture)  and  the  construction  of  churches.  ^ 
These  things  form  an  exceedingly  ugly  blot  on  the  fair 
fame  of  Christendom.  Great  buildings  like  the  cathe- 
dral in  Canton  stand  as  ever-conspicuous  monimients 
to  the  religious  bigotry,  the  political  arrogance,  and  the 

*  Cf.  Alexander  Michie's  Missionaries  in  China,  pp.  17-18  (Tientsin, 
1893). 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns  255 

contempt  for  popular  sentiment  shown  by  the  Christian 
nations  of  the  West  in  their  dealings  with  the  people 
of  China.  The  Mohammedans,  recognising  and  making 
allowances  for  certain  Chinese  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions, have  always,  in  China,  built  their  mosques 
without  minarets.  Is  it  impossible  for  good  Catholics 
to  worship  their  God  except  in  a  building  that  has  win- 
dows of  a  peculiar  shape  and  possesses  a  lofty  steeple? 
The  European,  perhaps,  believes  or  hopes  that  the 
sky-pointing  spire  will  serve  as  a  kind  of  silent  street- 
missionary,  pointing  out  to  the  heathen  who  is  groping 
in  darkness  the  way  by  which  he  may  reach  heaven. 
The  groping  heathen,  however,  is  more  likely  to  regard 
it  as  a  permanent  record  of  his  country's  political  dis- 
grace and  of  the  shameless  aggressiveness  of  militant 
Christianity.  The  Chinese,  like  the  Hindu,  smiles  when 
he  hears  his  Western  teachers  extolling  the  virtues  of 
meekness  and  humility.  "  I  was  teaching  the  Sermon  on 
the  Motmt,"  writes  a  missionary  in  India,  "to  a  Hindu 
student  and  friend.  When  we  came  to  the  words 
'  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth,  * 
he  said  to  me ;  '  Sir,  the  Englishman  may  inherit  the 
earth,  but  if  you  call  him  "meek"  he  would  be  in- 
sulted. "  '  ^  Indeed,  it  hardly  admits  of  dispute  that  of 
all  Anglo-Saxon  characteristics,  the  one  that  has  most 
vividly  impressed  the  minds  of  both  Hindu  and  Chinese 
is  the  absence  of  the  much-vaunted  Christian  virtue  of 
meekness.  Not  unnaturally,  perhaps,  this  makes  **the 
heathen  in  his  blindness  "  wonder  whether  Christianity 
really  possesses  the  character-transforming  power  that 
is  ascribed  to  it  by  his  missionary- teachers.  ^ 

^  The  East  and  the  West,  Jan.,  1910,  p.  83. 

^  "Indifference  to  the  opinions  of  others  and  disrespect  for  their  insti- 
tutions are  somewhat  characteristic  of  the  race  from  which  Protestant 
missionaries  mostly  come.     The  English-speaking  peoples  are  every- 


256  Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

A  missionary  once  told  me  that  he  hoped,  when  the 
state  of  the  mission  fimds  permitted,  to  equip  his  Httle 
church  with  a  steeple  and  a  bell.  I  hazarded  the  sug- 
gestion that  so  long  as  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
people  of  his  neighbourhood  were  non-Christians  and  not 
always  animated  by  the  friendliest  of  feelings  toward 
foreigners,  the  sound  of  a  Christian  bell  might  possibly 
do  the  cause  of  Christianity  more  harm  than  good. 
Church-bells  have  not  yet  become  a  common  feature  of 
Christian  worship  in  China,  and  if  missionaries  are  wise 
they  will  not  be  parties  to  their  introduction.  Apart 
from  the  irritating  effect  which  the  sound  might  have  on 
heathen  nerves,  it  is  obvious  that  the  tinkle  and  jangle 
of  Western  bells  would  inevitably  challenge  comparison 
with  the  deep  boom  of  the  sweet-toned  gongs  of  the 
Buddhist  monasteries,  and  the  result  of  the  comparison 
would  not  be  soothing  to  Christian  pride.  That 
Christians  would  explain  the  native  preference  for  the 

where  masterful  and  unaccommodating,  representatives  of  force  in  its 
various  phases,  physical,  nervous,  and  moral.  They  are  often  feared, 
sometimes  respected — at  a  distance.  They  make  good  laws  and  enforce 
them,  but  do  not  often  gain  as  they  deserve  the  love  of  inferior,  or  any 
other  races.  Constitutionally,  they  seem  to  be  incompetent  for  any- 
thing but  a  commanding  role;  hence  they  are  scarcely  the  ideal  stuff  of 
which  to  make  missionaries — to  races  which  inherit  adult  civilisations. 
(With  undeveloped  races  the  case  is,  of  course,  wholly  different.) 
Through  the  transparent  robes  of  their  humility  may  generally  be 
traced  the  imperious  spirit,  impatient  of  opposition  and  delay. 
Missionaries  often  try,  sincerely  enough,  to  live  down  their  people;  but 
to  wear  the  clothes  of  the  poor  and  eat  their  food  may  be  nearer  to 
formal  condescension  than  to  true  sympathy.  The  thing  needful, 
the  entering  freely  into  the  spirit  of  the  people,  is  of  exceedingly 
rare  attainment.  Missionaries  talk  much,  and  very  naturally,  of  the 
good  things  they  offer  to  the  Chinese,  and  the  sacrifices  they  make 
for  them.  But  gratitude  is  not  awakened  in  that  way,  much  less  love. 
Natives  instinctively  fear  foreigners,  et  dona  ferentes,  and  the  more  the 
gifts  are  pressed  on  their  attention  the  more  suspicious  they  naturally 
become. " — Alexander  Michie's  Missionaries  in  China,  p.  24  (Tientsin, 
1893). 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns  257 

Buddhist  gong  on  the  ground  of  Chinese  prejudice  and 
conservatism  is  more  than  likely.  A  Western  student 
of  Oriental  religious  usages  thus  writes  of  certain 
features  of  Buddhism  in  Japan : 

The  great  tongueless  bell  is  another  striking  accessory 
to  the  temple  services.  .  .  .  Whereas  the  general  associ- 
ations of  the  Christian  spire  and  belfry,  apart  from  the 
note  of  time,  are  those  of  joy,  invitation  and  good  news, 
those  of  the  tongueless  and  log-struck  bells  of  Buddhism 
are  sombre  and  saddening.  .  .  .  The  one  music,  high  in 
air,  seems  ever  to  tell  of  faith,  triumph,  and  aspiration; 
the  other  in  minor  notes,  from  bells  hung  low  on  yokes, 
perpetually  echoes  the  pessimism  of  despair,  the  folly  of 
living,  and  the  joy  that  anticipates  its  end.  ^ 

This  idea  is  a  suggestive  one  and  is  well  expressed; 
but  the  *'  pessimism"  of  Buddhism,  we  should  remember, 
has  been  worked  by  Christian  writers  for  rather  more 
than  it  is  worth.  Certainly  the  philosophical  pessimism 
of  Buddhism  has  never  succeeded  in  tinning  Buddhists 
into  practical  pessimists.  The  three  peoples  of  Asia  by 
whom  Buddhism  was  most  willingly  accepted — Burma, 
Siam,  and  Japan — are  probably  the  happiest  and  most 
cheerful  peoples  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  or  were  so  until 
the  coming  of  the  men  from  the  West  added  a  certain 
grimness  to  their  lives.  I  have  at  my  side  another  book, 
written  by  an  Englishman  who  has  shown  a  rare  capa- 
city not  only  for  sympathising  with  Eastern  ideas,  but 
also  for  expressing  his  sympathy  through  the  medium 
of  simple  and  telling  language.  In  the  following  pas- 
sage, however,  he  is  narrating  his  personal  experiences 
irrespective  of  Oriental  preferences  : 

I  can  remember  as  a  boy  [he  says]  how  I  disliked  to 
hear  the  church  bells  ringing  for  service.     I  hated  them. 

^  W.  E.  Griffis  in  The  Religions  of  Japan  (4th  ed.),  pp.  307-8. 
17 


258  Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

They  made  me  shudder.  .  .  .  And  now  I  know  that  I 
disliked  the  bells  then,  as  I  dislike  them  now,  because  of  all 
sounds  that  of  bells  is  to  me  the  harshest  and  noisiest.  .  .  . 
Very  few  are  in  tune,  none  are  sweet- toned,  all  are  rung 
far  louder  and  faster  than  they  should  be,  so  that  their 
notes,  which  might  be  bearable,  become  a  wrangling  abomi- 
nation. But  I  love  the  monastery  gongs  in  Burma  because 
they  are  delicately  tuned,  and  they  are  rung  softly  and  with 
such  proper  intervals  between  each  note  that  there  is  no 
jar,  none  of  that  hideous  conflict  of  the  dying  vibrations 
with  the  new  note  that  is  maddening  to  the  brain.  .  .  . 
I  shall  never  remember  the  call  to  Christian  prayer  without 
a  shudder  of  dislike,  a  putting  of  my  fingers  in  my  ears. 
I  shall  never  recall  the  Buddhist  gongs  ringing  down  the 
evening  air  across  the  misty  river  without  there  arising 
within  me  some  of  that  beauty,  that  gentleness  and  har- 
mony to  which  they  seem  such  a  perfect  echo.  ^ 

And  what  if  it  be  true,  as  the  writer  on  Japanese 
Buddhism  told  us,  that  the  Buddhist  gongs  are  sombre 
and  saddening?  Perhaps  it  is  chiefly  because  they  are 
saddening  that  they  are  so  beautiful  and  sweet.  Has 
not  one  of  your  own  Western  poets  told  you  that  "the 
sweetest  songs  are  those  that  tell  of  saddest  thought"? 

One  of  the  most  depressing  examples  of  the  way  in 
which  well-meaning  persons  try  to  fill  Chinese  bottles 
with  the  wine  of  Western  piety  may  be  foimd  in  that 
important  branch  of  the  Protestant  missionary's  labours 
which  consists  in  teaching  converts  to  sing  hymns.  The 
hymns  are  sung  to  Western  times,  though  it  must  be 
admitted  that  Western  ears  might  fail  sometimes  to 
recognise  that  such  was  the  case.    The  carved  noises  of 

I  Fielding  Hall's  The  Hearts  of  Men  (2nd  ed.),  pp.  305-7.  Perhaps 
an  exception  might  be  made  in  favour  of  some  of  the  great  cathedral  and 
college  bells  of  Europe.  Has  Mr.  Fielding  Hall  ever  stood  in  the 
cloisters  of  the  most  beautiful  of  Oxford  colleges,  on  An  autumn  evening, 
at  a  time  when  the  bells  of  the  great  tov/er  are  ringing  a  muffled  peal? 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns  259 

China — carved  unevenly  with  a  blunt  knife — ^may  per- 
haps be  regarded  as  unworthy  of  the  name  of  music, 
but  at  least  they  have  the  advantage  of  being  Chinese; 
and  so  long  as  Christian  hymns — or  Christian  doctrines 
for  that  matter — insist  upon  appearing  in  a  foreign 
garb,  they  stand  little  chance  of  attaining  general  popu- 
larity in  China.  We  find,  moreover,  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  hymns  taught  to  Chinese  converts  are 
taken  out  of  European  collections  and  translated  with 
the  most  painful  literalness  into  bald  Chinese.  ^  A  great 
many  of  the  metaphors  and  devotional  phrases  em- 
ployed in  these  hymns  are  not  only  foreign  to  the  Chinese 
literary  spirit,  but  are  absolutely  repulsive  to  Chinese 
ears  and  minds.  It  would  be  unfair  to  dwell  on  the 
extremely  disagreeable  features  of  many  of  the  hymns 
delighted  in  by  revivalists  and  their  sympathisers,  for 
I  know  that  they  meet  with  no  approval  whatever  from 
the  educated  clergy  or  the  higher  types  of  missionaries. 
A  parson  of  the  Church  of  England  describes  them, 
without  exaggeration,  as  "superficial  and  even  shock- 
ing."^ Yet  we  find  that  even  Hymns  Ancient  and 
Modern — which  include  so  many  beautiful  poems  in 
addition  to  so  much  ridiculous  doggerel — are  not  always 
of  the  kind  that  look  well  in  a  Chinese  dress.  One  of  the 
most  eloquent  of  modem  English  writers  on  religious 

^  The  extremely  unsatisfactory  condition  of  Church  music  and  hym- 
nology  in  Christian  circles  in  China  is  now  beginning  to  be  recognised  by 
a  good  many  missionaries.  A  very  interesting  symposium  on  the  sub- 
ject appears  in  The  Chinese  Record  for  April,  1909.  Many  of  the  writers 
freely  recognise  the  grotesque  results  often  produced  by  the  literal  trans- 
lation of  English  hymns  into  Chinese  words.  A  sense  of  humour,  if  no 
loftier  instinct,  should  have  prevented  a  translator  from  putting  the 
words  "Sweet  bye  and  bye"  into  literal  Chinese  (T'ien  chiang-lai). 
The  majority  of  the  writers  seem  to  be  in  favour  of  the  retention  of 
foreign  hymn  tunes,  though  the  reasons  given  are  scarcely  convincing. 

2  The  Rev.  E.  S.  Shuttle  worth  in  The  Hihhert  Journal,  Jan.,  1907,  p. 
437. 


26o    Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

subjects  has  spoken  strongly  of  certain  crudities  of 
thought  and  language  which  disfigure  many  of  the 
Church's  hymns. 

The  most  notable  example  of  a  Christian  crudity  thus 
apotheosised  [he  says]  is  one  which,  if  we  were  not  so 
familiar  with  it,  would  offend  all  the  literary,  and  all  the 
human,  feeling  in  us  each  time  we  met  with  it  in  the  many 
hymns  where  it  is  found.  How  many  of  our  hymns  are 
soiled  with  nastiness — I  can  find  no  other  word — concern- 
ing the  blood  of  Jesus  I  Even  in  a  hymn  in  many  ways 
so  beautiful  and  appealing  as  that  old  friend  of  most  of  us, 
"Rock  of  Ages,"  it  is  difficult  to  read  without  a  certain 
sense  of  distaste  and  revolt  such  lines  as — 

"Let  the  Water  and  the  Blood 
From  Thy  riven  Side  which  flow'd , 
Be  of  sin  the  double  cure. 
Cleanse  me  from  its  guilt  and  power."' 

With  this  writer's  feelings  of  "distaste  and  revolt" 
all  educated  Chinese  would  be  in  complete  sympathy. 
Perhaps  Europeans  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  upon  us 
as  a  murderous  and  bloodthirsty  race — their  attention 
having  been  drawn  to  China  only  in  times  of  political 
excitement  or  on  account  of  the  murder  of  a  foreigner — 
but  any  one  who  has  the  most  superficial  acquaintance 
with  the  literature  of  my  country  will  agree  with  me 
that  ** nastiness"  of  the  kind  referred  to  by  the  writer 
just  quoted  is  rigorously  excluded  from  Chinese  poetry. 
It  is  rather  curious  that  Mr.  Garrod  should  have  selected 

I  See  H.  W.  Garrod's  The  Religion  of  All  Good  Men,  pp.  205-6 
(London,  Constable  &  Co.,  1906).  Cf  Allan  Hoben's  article  in  The 
American  Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1909,  pp.  416-17.  What  is  wanted, 
he  says,  is  "a  series  of  theological  symbols  consonant  with  modern 
culture.  ...  To  break  up  the  present  heavy  and  widespread  lethargy 
would  be  no  small  blessing;  for  many  of  the  old-thought  symbols  have 
lost  their  appeal,  having  become  meaningless,  disgusting,  or  impossible. " 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns    261 

*'Rock  of  Ages*'  for  purposes  of  illustration,  for  that 
hymn,  as  it  happens,  is  one  of  those  that  have  been 
translated  into  Chinese  and  is  sung  lustily  at  missionary 
prayer-meetings.  "The  evening  was  also  taken  up/* 
writes  a  missionary,  '*with  catechising,  preaching,  and 
hymn-singing.  *Rock  of  Ages'  is  the  great  favourite 
here. ' '  ^  Mr.  Garrod's  justifiable  complaint  is  of  course 
applicable  to  a  great  number  of  other  poems  in  the 
English  hymnal.  The  following  stanza  appears  in  an 
otherwise  attractive  little  hymn  which  has  had  the 
good  fortime  to  be  associated  with  touchingly  beautiful 
music: 

"Come  let  us  stand  beneath  the  Cross r 
So  may  the  Blood  from  out  His  Side 
Fall  gently  on  us  drop  by  drop, 
Jesus,  our  Lord,  is  crucified."^ 

The  Christian  whose  upbringing  of  natural  piety  en- 
ables him  to  read  such  religious  poetry  as  this  without 
a  shudder  will  be  able  with  perfect  equanimity  to  sing 
or  peruse  such  lines  as: 

"  Dear  dying  Lamb,  Thy  precious  Blood 
Shall  never  lose  its  power"  3; 


or 


or 


'Sprinkle  Thy  Blood  upon  my  heart, 
And  melt  it  with  Thy  dying  love"*; 


^  China*s  Millions,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  26. 

'  Hymn  No.  114.  Cf.  also  Hymns  No.  67  (st.  3),  113  (st.  4),  116  (st. 
5),  288  (the  last  two  lines  of  each  stanza),  and  multitudes  of  others.  My 
references  are  to  the  ordinary  (unrevised)  hymnal  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

3  Hymn  633,  st.  3.  4  Hymn  635,  st.  4. 


262    Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

**  Here  I  rest,  for  ever  viewing 
Mercy  pour'd  in  streams  of  Blood  ^; 

or 

"All  the  vain  things  that  charm  me  most, 
I  sacrifice  them  to  His  Blood.'* ^ 

One  of  the  most  disagreeable  stanzas  of  this  kind  is 
to  be  found  in  a  hymn  which,  curiously  enough,  is 
specially  intended  for  mission  services.  It  may  find 
favour  with  Western  missionaries,  but  it  would  find 
none  with  Eastern  converts  who  had  not  already  become 
partially  de-orientalised. 

** There  is  a  fountain  fill'd  with  Blood, 
Drawn  from  Emmanuel's  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains."^ 

These  hymns,  or  others  like  them,  form  part  of  the 
regular  religious  food  of  the  Chinese  convert.  I  have 
before  me  a  report  of  the  conversion  of  a  carpenter,  who 
is  admitted,  by  the  way,  to  have  been  **one  of  the  worst 
characters  in  the  city. ' '  We  are  told  that  * '  it  was  cheer- 
ing to  hear  this  vile-mouthed  fellow  singing  at  his  work 
about  the  blood  of  Jesus.  *  Oh  precious  is  the  flow,  that 
makes  me  white  as  snow;  No  other  fount  I  know, 
nothing  but  the  blood  of  Jesus. ' "  ^  Comment,  I  think, 
is  unnecessary.  Yet  there  are  Western  philanthropists 
who  wonder  why  the  educated  classes  of  China  are  so 
stony-hearted,  so  strangely  impervious  to  the  beauty 
of  Christianity,  and  so  blindly  devoted  to  their  own 
heathen  philosophies !  There  are  charitable  supporters 
of  foreign  missions  who  cannot  understand  how  it  is 

^  Hymn  109.  »  Hymn  108. 

3  Hymn  633.     Its  author  was  the  poet  Cowper. 

4  The  Chinese  Recorder,  May  1909,  p.  295. 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns     263 

that  the  Chinese  gentleman  turns,  not  merely  with  cold- 
ness, but  with  disgust,  from  the  choice  specimens  of 
Christian  literature  that  have  been  specially  selected  by 
religious  and  linguistic  experts  as  pre-eminently  suitable 
for  translation  into  the  Chinese  language.  Verily  may 
f  t  be  said  of  some  of  the  missionary  societies  of  Europe 
and  America  that  ''they  know  not  what  they  do." 

There  are  perhaps  two  chief  reasons  why  nauseating 
rubbish  of  the  kind  described  has  been  allowed  to  dis- 
figure the  Christian  hymnals :  one  is  that  a  vast  number 
of  people  who  like  to  join  heartily  in  what  they  call  a 
''rousing  hymn"  regard  the  words  merely  as  a  kind  of 
pious  excuse  for  the  music,  and  while  exercising  their 
vocal  abilities  to  the  utmost,  pay  little  or  no  attention 
to  the  meaning  of  the  words  they  utter ;  and  another  is 
that  most  people  who  have  been  born  and  bred  as  Christ- 
ians accept  the  hymn-book  as  part  of  their  necessary 
theological  equipment,  and  would  no  sooner  question 
the  literary  excellence  of  its  contents  or  the  appro- 
priateness of  its  metaphors  than  they  would  dream  of 
going  to  church  in  everyday  clothes  or  of  adversely 
criticising  the  strange  biological  law  which,  according  to 
the  popular  mythology  of  Christianity,  provides  angels 
with  arms  as  well  as  wings. 

Every  one  has  heard  of  absurd  mistakes  made  by 
children  in  connection  with  the  meaning  of  the  hymns 
and  prayers  which  they  learn  by  rote.  An  English 
writer  of  the  present  day  mentions  a  few  cases  which 
may  be  taken  as  typical.^  A  child  visited  the  Zoologi- 
cal Gardens  and  showed  some  signs  of  disappointment 
at  what  he  saw  there.     An  investigation  of  the  matter 

I  See  The  Happy  Moralist,  by  Hubert  Bland,  pp.  188-9.  Mr.  Bland 
says,  with  truth:  "A  very  strange  and  interesting,  though  httle  noted, 
fact  about  children  is  that  reticence  of  theirs,  that  reluctance  to  ask  for 
explanations,  to  admit  that  they  do  not  understand." 


264    Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

indicated  that  he  felt  aggrieved  at  not  having  been 
shown  the  "cross-eye  bear.'*  Further  questioning 
elicited  the  fact  that  what  the  child  had  wanted  to  see 
was  the  cross-eye  bear  which  he  sang  about  in  the  hymn. 
The  hymn  was  duly  produced,  and  there  in  all  truth 
were  the  words,  **The  sacred  cross  I  bear."  Another 
child  mentioned  by  the  same  author  used  to  repeat  the 
words  "pity  my  simplicity**  as  if  they  were  "  pity  mice 
and  plicity,  **  and  was  under  the  impression  that  a  plicity 
was  "some  sort  of  little  furry  live  creature,**  but  never 
had  the  courage  to  ask  questions  on  the  subject.  Yet 
another  child  sang  a  certain  hymn  as  if  it  began : 

**Thou  whose  almighty  word 
Cows  in  the  darkness  heard, 
And  took  their  flight" — 

the  correct  version  of  which  may  be  found  in  Hymn  360 
in  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  Another  writer  men- 
tions a  child  whose  idea  of  certain  words  in  the  Litany 
was  "Three  persons  and  one  goat,  have  mercy  upon  us, 
miserable  sinners.**^  Perhaps  the  main  interest  that 
such  infantile  mistakes  have  for  most  of  us  lies  in  the  un- 
doubted fact  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  ordinary 
Christians  arrive  at  old  age  without  having  really  out- 
grown the  crude  theological  notions  of  their  childhood. 
They  do  not,  indeed,  make  verbal  blunders,  because  they 
have  learned  to  read  and  to  spell,  but  they  retain  the 
most  rudimentary  ideas  concerning  the  great  problems 
of  religion.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  mass  of  Christians 
who  allow  their  clergy  to  do  their  thinking  for  them  and 
who  have  never  come  into  intellectual  touch  with  what 
they  and  their  religious  advisers  would  call  heterodox 
ideas  and  "infidel**  literature.  Such  persons  will  listen 
quite  unmoved  to  what  they  believe  to  be  God-inspired 
^  The  Spectator,  Dec.  25,  1909. 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns    265 

accounts  of  atrocious  crimes  committed  by  divine  com- 
mand or  with  divine  approval,  and  it  will  never  occur  to 
them  to  ask  how  the  heavenly  tyrant  who  tested  the 
faith  of  Abraham  by  ordering  him  to  make  a  sacrificial 
offering  of  his  own  son  can  possibly  merit  the  adoration 
of  mankind  or  deserve  to  be  described  as  a  god  of  limit- 
less compassion.  ^  The  average  non-inquisitive  church 
congregation  learns  with  perfect  equanimity  of  how 
their  Lord  Jehovah  ordered  the  Israelites  to  enter  upon 
a  savage  war  against  the  Midianites,  and  how  his  serv- 
ant Moses  authorised  the  indiscriminate  slaughter  of 
every  man,  every  male  child,  and  every  married  woman.  ^ 
From  another  part  of  the  same  Scriptures  it  learns, 
with  equal  complacency,  that  God  is  the  imiversal 
Father,  and  that  his  love  and  mercy  are  infinite.  And 
because  it  has  never  outgrown  the  intellectual  docility 
of  childhood  in  matters  affecting  religion,  it  is  stirred  by 
no  uneasy  doubts  as  to  the  congruity  of  these  two  por- 
traits of  the  divine  character  or  as  to  the  reality  of  the 
alleged  revelation  that  forms  the  basis  of  its  creed. 
At  most  there  may  be  a  few  of  its  members  who,  feeling 
that  things  are  not  quite  as  they  should  be,  console  them- 
selves with  the  thought  that  the  theory  of  "  progressive 
revelation,"  of  which  they  may  have  vaguely  heard, 
satisfactorily  explains  every  difficulty  and  affords 
scientific  proof  that  the  Bible  is  in  very  truth  God's 
holy  and  infallible  Word.  ^ 

Little  wonder  is  it  that,  having  swallowed  a  proces- 

'  One  child  I  know  of  was  original  enough  to  express  surprise  that 
Abraham  was  not  arrested  by  the  police  before  he  had  gone  as  far  in  the 
matter  as  he  did ;  and  indeed  I  suppose  not  the  most  orthodox  Christian 
will  maintain  that  the  alleged  commands  of  God  would  save  a  twentieth- 
century  father  from  the  gaol  or  the  lunatic  asylum  if  he  were  caught  in 
the  act  of  binding  his  son  to  a  sacrificial  altar.  Cf,  D.  G.  Ritchie's 
Natural  Rights,  p.  158  (Swan  Sonnenschein,  1903). 

2  Num.  xxxi.  3  See  pp.  282  seq. 


266    Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

sion  of  biblical  camels,  unthinking  Christians  do  not 
strain  at  the  gnats  of  the  hymnal.  They  are  not  dis- 
turbed even  by  the  bad  morality  of  such  hymns  as 
this: 

"Whatever,  Lord,  we  lend  to  Thee, 
Repaid  a  thousandfold  will  be ; 
Then  gladly  will  we  give  to  Thee, 
Who  givest  all/'' 

As  a  purely  business  transaction  this  arrangement  would 
meet  with  the  entire  approval  of  the  most  irreHgious 
and  sordid  of  speculators.  I  am  well  aware  that  Christ- 
ian morality  is  built  on  a  sounder  basis  than  this :  then 
why  teach  the  sheep  of  the  Christian  fold  to  bleat  aspira- 
tions toward  an  ethical  ideal  of  which  the  most  backward 
of  pagan  wolves  might  well  be  ashamed?  Surely  it 
must  be  painfully  obvious  that  the  average  church 
congregation  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  masticate 
the  doctrines  that  are  put  into  its  mouth:  it  swallows 
them  whole.  The  churchgoer  who  never  dreams  of 
worrying  himself  on  week-days  with  the  dreadful  thought 
of  hell,  and  has  perhaps  a  nebulous  idea  that  its  exist- 
ence has  been  satisfactorily  disproved  by  the  higher 
criticism,  does  not  fail  to  pull  himself  back  to  rigorous 
orthodoxy  on  Sunday  morning. 

*'  He  is  found  in  human  fashion. 
Death  and  sorrow  here  to  know, 
That  the  race  of  Adam's  children, 
Doom'd  by  Law  to  endless  woe. 
May  not  henceforth  die  and  perish 
In  the  dreadful  gulf  below, 

Evermore  and  evermore."^ 

The  author  of  this  poem  deserves  credit  for  the  inge- 

»  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  365.     (Italics  not  in  original.) 
2  Ibid.,  No.  56. 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns    267 

nuity  with  which  he  has  dealt  in  the  fourth  Hne  with  the 
problem  of  evil.  It  is  not  his  fault,  of  course,  if  in- 
quisitive sceptics  insist  upon  an  answer  to  the  question, 
''Who  promulgated  the  Law?*'  One  is  not  allowed  to 
heckle  a  clergyman. 

It  is  clear  that  the  compilers  of  the  English  hymnal 
were  under  no  apprehension  that  the  religious  public 
would  be  carpingly  critical ;  but  surely  they  might  have 
avoided  insulting  adult  intelligence  with  words  like 
these : 

**  Around  the  Throne  on  high, 
Where  night  can  never  be. 
The  white-robed  harpers  of  the  sky 
Bring  ceaseless  hymns  to  Thee."' 

A  stanza  that  occurs  in  a  much  later  poem  in  the  same 
collection  might  perhaps  be  considered  worthy  to  follow 
the  lines  just  quoted  : 

*'  Lord,  I  believe  Thou  hast  prepared. 
Unworthy  though  I  be, 
For  me  a  Blood-bought  free  reward, 
A  golden  harp  for  me."^ 

As  I  have  said,  I  do  not  propose  to  quote  the  "super- 
ficial and  even  shocking"  hymns  that  have  been  pre- 
pared for  use  at  revival  meetings  and — in  many  cases — 
translated  into  Chinese  for  the  benefit  of  the  converted 
heathen.  But  the  following  extract  from  the  record  of  a 
missionary  will  show  that  the  persons  in  whose  hands 
lies  the  selection  of  hymns  suitable  for  translation  into 
an  Eastern  language  have  made  but  a  poor  attempt  to 
adapt  themselves  to  Oriental  taste  in  matters  of  re- 
ligious or  poetical  expression : 

*  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  No.  30.  ^  /J^'^.^  No.  633. 


268     Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

On  the  Lord's  Day  several  thousand  Miao  attended  the 
services,  and  about  nine  hundred  sat  around  the  table  of 
the  Lord.  ...  It  was  melting  to  hear  them  sing,  *'My 
Lord  and  my  King  shed  his  blood,"  *' All  come  and  behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,"  "On  the  Cross,  on  the  Cross."  ...  By 
night  my  voice  was  more  than  used  up. 

I  read  recently  of  an  English  child  of  three  years  old 
who,  having  been  taken  to  chiu*ch — ^presiimably  for  the 
first  time — evinced  a  lively  interest  in  the  ascent  of  the 
clergyman  to  the  pulpit.  ^*Is  he  Jesus?"  whispered 
the  child.  *'No.^*  ''Then  is  he  Punch? "^  Perhaps 
it  is  legitimate  to  ask  whether  the  converted  Chinese  and 
Miao — the  Christian  Miao,  by  the  way — '^are  all  quite 
clear  regarding  the  way  of  salvation,'' ^  have  really  a 
much  more  definite  idea  of  Christ  and  Christianity  than 
the  little  boy  who  was  content  to  place  Punch  and  Jesus 
side  by  side  in  his  childish  pantheon,  and  ready  to 
pay  just  as  much  reverence  to  one  as  to  the  other.  ^  And 
what  is  to  be  said  of  the  European  adult  who  strenu- 
ously employs  his  mature  intellect  in  solving  what  he 
calls  the  practical  problems  of  life?  How  often  does 
he  use  that  intellect  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  and 
developing  the  crude  theological  conceptions  and  vague 
religious  ideas  of  his  childhood?  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
spoke  truly,  and  in  beautiful  words,  when  he  told  us 

^  China's  Millions,  Feb.,  1909,  p.  26. 

'  This  story  is  told  by  a  writer  in  The  Spectator  of  Dec.  25,  1909. 

3  China's  Millions,  Sept.,  1909,  p.  143. 

4  The  following  note  by  a  missionary  may  serve  to  show  that  the  ideas 
of  the  unconverted  Chinese  child  with  regard  to  Christianity  are  some- 
times not  unlike  those  of  the  baptised  Christian  child.  ''The  foreign 
missionary  is  a  rara  avis  in  those  parts,  and  some  of  the  people  apply  to 
him  the  name  of  the  one  he  represents.  As,  passing  along  the  streets, 
one  heard  the  children  saying  Keh  z  Yiae-su!  ('That  is  Jesus! ')  one  could 
not  help  thinking  of  the  privilege  and  responsibility  of  bearing  that 
Blessed  Name,"  etc. — China's  Millions,  April,  1909,  p.  56. 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns     269 

that  most  men  are  "childish  in  the  best  things  till  they 
be  cradled  in  their  graves. " 

If  Western  Christians  who  wish  to  evangelise  the 
heathen  of  China  would  begin  by  getting  rid  of  a  great 
deal  that  is  crude,  ugly,  and  non-essential  in  their  prose- 
lytising methods  and  in  their  forms  of  religious  expression, 
they  would  not  only  gain  more  converts,  and  gain  them 
more  quickly,  but  they  would  cease  to  excite  ridicule 
and  contempt  among  the  educated  classes  of  this  vast 
empire.  Even  in  the  more  serious  matters  of  dogma 
and  creed  Christianity  must — if  it  wishes  to  enjoy  any- 
thing like  prosperity  in  the  East — submit  to  a  somewhat 
drastic  process  of  modification  and  adaptation ;  and  it  is 
essential  that  it  should  do  so  without  sacrificing  honesty, 
sincerity,  and  candour.  A  few  of  the  most  advanced  and 
highly  cultured  missionaries  recognise  this,  though  they 
are  obliged  for  the  sake  of  their  weaker  and  more  ignor- 
ant brethren  to  express  themselves  with  almost  excessive 
caution.  One  missionary,  in  India,  goes  so  far  as  to 
declare  that  "before  Christianity  is  to  gain  acceptance 
...  it  must  be  dissociated  from  many  Western  ideas 
and  practices  which  seem  to  us  essential  even  to  its  very 
life,''^  "There  is  a  distinct  danger,"  says  another, 
"of  confusing  the  accidents  of  Christianity  with  its 
essentials. "  ^  It  is  now  beginning  to  be  realised  that  the 
Europeanising  of  the  Oriental,  whether  in  religious, 
social,  or  educational  matters,  is  not  the  consummation 
that  ought  to  be  aimed  at  by  Western  missionaries. 
"We  have  given  our  Indian  converts, *'  says  one  writer, 
"English  names  and  English  dresses,  English  churches 
and  pews;  worse  by  far,  we  have  imposed  on  them  an 
English  liturgy  (verbally  translated)  as  the  medium  for 

^  Dr.  J.  P.  Jones  in  India's  Problems,  p.  356.     (Italics  not  in  original.) 
2  Rev.  E.  Greaves,  of  Benares,  in  The  East  and  the  West,  Jan.,  1910, 
p.  46. 


270     Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

the  expression  of  their  devotional  Hfe."'  And  the 
result,  according  to  this  candid  missionary,  is  that, 
though  the  Indians  are  attracted  by  Christ,  they  are 
''profoundly  repelled  by  Christianity.*'^ 

Face  the  situation  squarely  and  boldly  [says  one  of 
the  writers  just  quoted],  accept  the  facts  in  all  their 
simple  and  essential  reality,  and  show  that  Christ  may  be 
accepted  without  any  absolute  necessity  for  adopting  the 
Christianity  of  the  West.  Whether  we  like  to  confess  it 
or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  Christianity,  the  Christianity 
which  is  set  forth  by  missionaries,  is  Western.  The  formu- 
lation of  its  doctrines,  the  proportion  and  relative  weight 
of  its  parts,  its  ecclesiastical  organisations,  its  forms  of 
worship,  and  in  part,  also,  its  ideals  of  the  rehgious  Hfe, 
are  Western.  It  is  inevitable  that  they  should  be  so.  But 
Christ  is  not  Western,  and  it  is  possible  for  men  to  accept 
Christ  and  to  become  his  true  followers  without  identi- 
fying themselves  with  any  Western  Church.^ 

He  therefore  boldly  advises  that  Western  missionaries, 
having  entrusted  the  New  Testament  to  their  native 
followers  and  sympathisers,  should  give  them  absolute 
liberty  to  interpret  it  in  the  way  they  like  best,  and 
allow  them  to  build  up  a  Christianity  of  their  own,  free 
from  any  necessary  connection  with  the  Churches  of 
the  West. 

If  these  proposals  were  to  be  carried  out  in  their 
integrity,  one  result  would  be  certain.    Oriental  Christi- 

» Rev.  W.  E.  S.  Holland  in  The  East  and  the  West,  July,  1909,  p.  310. 

»  Is  there  not  some  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  a  growing  feeling  of 
the  same  kind  among  the  masses  of  the  people  in  Christian  Europe  it- 
self? "We  have  heard, "  says  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell,  "of  a  meeting  of 
workmen  cheering  Jesus  and  hissing  the  Churches  "  {The  New  Theology , 
7th  impr.,  p.  70). 

3  Rev.  E.  Greaves,  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  in  The  East  and 
the  West,  Jan.,  1910,  p.  46. 


Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns    271 

anity  would  discard — or  rather  would  never  dream 
of  adopting — the  preposterous  code  of  dogmas  that 
still  receive  lip-service  in  the  West.  There  would 
be  no  sentimental  reasons  to  prevent  Orientals — as 
many  devout  Western  Christians  are  prevented — from 
accepting  the  extremes t  results  of  modem  criticism, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  their  new  zeal  for  science 
and  scientific  methods  the  yoimg  biblical  scholars  of  the 
Orient,  free  from  Western  supervision,  would  make 
short  work  of  biblical  inerrancy,  virgin  births,  bodily 
resurrections,  piacular  sacrifices,  the  supernatural 
efficacy  of  prayer,  everlasting  punishments,  and  "tan- 
gled Trinities.'*  It  is  a  grave  question  whether  the 
residue  that  remained  intact  after  passing  through  the 
ordeal  of  criticism  and  adaptation  would  be  considered 
worthy,  by  Western  observers,  of  the  name  of  Christi- 
anity. The  faith  of  Christendom  has  itself  gone 
through  so  much  reinterpretation  and  readjustment 
during  the  last  half -century  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  say  what  doctrines  may  or  may  not,  fifty  years  hence, 
be  considered  essential  to  Christianity.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  urgently  necessary,  in  the  higher 
interests  of  Western  civilisation  itself,  that  the  educated 
supporters  of  foreign  missions  should  discourage  their 
emissaries  from  making  Christianity  an  object  of  ridi- 
cule and  contempt  by  perpetuating,  in  Eastern  lands, 
its  literary,  devotional,  and  dogmatic  crudities.  There 
are  many  missionaries  who  seem  to  think  they  can  hardly 
employ  themselves  in  a  more  useful  way  than  by 
teaching  Chinese  peasants  to  sing  about  sacrificed 
lambs  and  foimtains  filled  with  blood,  or  by  playing 
upon  their  ignorance  and  credulity  in  matters  of  prayer 
and  miracle  and  devil-possession,  or  by  encouraging 
them  to  take  emotional  delight  in  the  tawdry  metaphors 
and  vulgar  imagery  that   occupy   so   conspicuous   a 


272     Churches,  Church-Bells,  and  Hymns 

place  in  the  inferior  devotional  literature  of  the  West. 
These  missionaries  may  be  good,  earnest  Christians, 
and  among  their  own  people  they  might  prove  them- 
selves to  be  ministering  angels,  and  find  every  hour  of 
the  day  profitably  occupied.  But  in  an  Eastern  land 
these  men  have  no  appropriate  place,  and  if  they  shake 
off  the  dust  from  their  feet  and  leave  us  to  wallow  in  the 
heathenism  for  which  they  entertain  such  freely-ex- 
pressed contempt,  we  shall  bid  them  good-bye  with  no 
heart-heaviness  and  no  sense  of  desolation. 

Offer  an  alien  race  the  boon  of  a  great  ideal,  and  if 
the  boon  is  accepted  at  all  you  need  have  no  fear  but 
that  its  new  possessors  will  give  it  fitting  expression  in 
terms  of  their  own  religious  or  artistic  instincts.  Let 
China  have  a  share  in  Christ  if  you  will,  but  let  the 
Chinese  construct  their  own  christology. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

EASTERN  AND  WESTERN  CIVILISATION,  METAMORPHIC 
CHRISTIANITY,  AND  BIBLIOLATRY 

EDUCATED  Chinese  are  often  much  struck  by  a 
very  curious  and  (from  our  point  of  view)  disagree- 
able characteristic  of  European  and  American  criticism 
of  Oriental  civilisation.  It  is  repeatedly  asserted — es- 
pecially by  Christian  missionaries — that  the  evil  feat- 
ures of  Chinese  political  and  social  life  are  the  result 
of  our  false  religious  and  heathen  ethics,  and  can  be 
cured  only  by  Christianity.  Judicial  and  administrative 
corruption,  sexual  immorality,  polygamy,  the  inferior 
position  of  women,  foot-binding,  prison-torture,  and 
all  the  other  evils  that  exist  in  China  can  be  removed, 
we  are  told,  by  Christian  teachings,  and  by  no  other 
agency.  I  have  heard  a  missionary  assert  with  dog- 
matic emphasis  that  the  Chinese  anti-opium  campaign 
is  foredoomed  to  failure  imless  China  becomes  Christian ; 
yet  I  have  little  doubt  that  if  an  Arab  or  a  native  of 
India  were  to  inform  the  English  that  they  will  never 
be  cured  of  the  vice  of  drunkenness  until  they  become 
Mohammedans  he  would  be  regarded  as  a  presump- 
tuous fool.  Another  well-known  missionary  has  stated 
in  a  widely-read  book  descriptive  of  the  Chinese  people 
that  "China  will  never  have  patriotic  subjects  imtil  she 
has  Christian  subjects.*'^  In  the  course  of  a  pulpit 
oration  such  a  remark  might  be  regarded  as  a  pardon- 

*  A.  H.  Smith's  Village  Life  in  China,  p.  349. 

273 


274      Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

able  clerical  hyperbole,  but  as  it  occurs  in  a  work  that 
professes  to  be  a  serious  contribution  to  sociology  it 
cannot  be  allowed  to  pass  without  comment.  To  con- 
vince ourselves  of  its  ineptitude  we  have  only  to  remem- 
ber that  the  most  intensely  patriotic  of  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  to-day  is  a  nation  of  heathens. 

I  have  frequently  asked  Europeans  and  Americans  to 
what  causes  they  attribute  the  greatness  of  Western 
nations — the  dominant  position  in  the  world  held  by 
Europe  and  the  transoceanic  European  races.  The 
answers  received  are  various.  One  declares  plainly  and 
bluntly  that  the  races  of  North-western  Europe  are 
biologically  and  intellectually  pre-eminent  among  the 
peoples  of  the  globe.  Another  says  that  constant  strife 
and  warfare  between  a  number  of  fairly  equally- 
matched  states  has,  through  ruthless  competition,  re- 
sulted in  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  A  third  emphasises 
the  strength-giving  results  of  a  vast  commercial  and 
industrial  system ;  a  fourth  says  that  the  prosperity  of 
the  West  rests  on  its  mechanical  inventions,  its  scientific 
discoveries,  and  its  successful  application  of  science  to 
its  material  needs.  Another,  again,  lays  stress  on  the 
legal  and  political  principles  of  the  Western  countries 
and  the  advance  of  democracy.  But  these  and  other 
rather  matter-of-fact  explanations  are  those  of  laymen. 
When  I  ask  Christian  missionaries  for  their  explanation 
of  the  dominance  of  the  great  Western  nations  I  almost 
invariably  receive  one  stereotyped  answer:  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity.  I  think  there  is  nothing  in  the 
claims  often  put  forward  by  missionaries  that  is  more 
irritating  than  the  confidence  with  which  they  give 
credit  to  Christianity  for  all  the  good  things,  and  none 
of  the  bad  things,  that  have  befallen  the  Western  people, 
and  the  readiness  with  which  they  attribute  to  Con- 
fucianism and  our  other  native  systems  of  religion  and 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation      275 

ethics  the  evils  that  disfigure  the  social  and  spiritual  life 
of  China. ^  ''Whatever  good  exists  among  us,"  writes 
a  missionary,  "has  been  developed  as  a  result  of  Christ- 
ian teaching."^  And  what  about  the  bad?  That,  he 
would  doubtless  hasten  to  explain,  has  been  developed  in 
spite  of  Christian  teaching.  And  may  we  not  say  that 
the  evils  of  Chinese  life  have  been  developed  in  spite  of 
Confucianism?  It  may  well  be  admitted  that  at  the 
present  time  Oriental  civilisation  has  fallen  into  tem- 
porary decay,  but  is  your  Occidental  civilisation  in  such 
a  state  that  you  can  afford  to  throw  stones? 

We  Europeans  [says  Mr.  Leonard  Alston]  are  trained 
to  certain  blindness  as  regards  particular  elements 
of  our  social  environment,  and  we  cannot  understand  the 
corresponding  blindness  of  others.  And  so  it  happens 
quite  naturally  that  ''the  inhumanity  of  the  Chinese,  not 
being  the  inhumanity  of  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  or  New 
York,  can  always  be  recited  to  arouse  crowds  in  those 
cities  to  a  righteous  horror  of  the  'heathen  Chinee* — just 
as  the  Western  civilisations  can  be  described  in  Peking 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  cultured  Chinaman  and  be 
made  the  starting-point  of  a  Boxer  movement."^ 

The  Congo  atrocities  hardly  reflect  credit  on  the  Christ- 
ian Power  through  whose  agents  they  were  perpetrated. 
Again,  it  was  only  the  other  day  that  the  condition  of 
the  labourers  at  San  Thome  and  Principe  was  described 
as  "slavery  of  the  vilest  possible  type."^    The  social 

^  See  above,  pp.  24-6. 

2  The  East  and  the  West,  Jan.,  1910,  p.  Sj. 

3  Leonard  Alston's  The  White  Man's  Work  in  Asia  and' Africa,  p.  39 
(Longmans,  1907).  The  quotation  by  Mr.  Alston  is  from  an  article 
by  Mr.  J.  R.  Macdonald  in  The  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  July, 
1901. 

^  Quoted  from  Sir  Edward  Carson,  as  reported  in  The  Times  of  Dec. 
6,  1909.     A  leader  in  the  same  newspaper,  Dec.  7,  remarked  that  the 


276     Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

condition  of  a  considerable  section  of  people  of  rich  and 
prosperous  England  seems  to  be  hardly  better  than  that 
of  the  poorest  classes  of  backward  China.  Listen  to 
the  words  spoken  on  the  subject  by  a  British  Cabinet 
Minister. 

There  was  a  cry  which  broke  upon  their  ears,  a  persist- 
ent cry  of  intolerable  suffering  from  a  section  of  this  great 
population.  Civilisation,  which  had  brought,  and  science, 
which  gave,  many  fair  things  to  a  large  proportion  of  the 
population,  had  given  nothing  to  the  poorest  and  weakest 
among  us.  The  condition  of  these  was  much  worse,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  degree  of  human  misery,  than  the 
condition  of  the  savages  of  the  country  he  had  recently 
visited  [South  Africa],  or  of  the  fierce,  barbarous  peoples 
of  time  long  past.^ 

Another  English  writer  makes  equally  melancholy 
comments  on  the  condition  of  English  institutions  and 
civilisation.     The  multitude  are  depressed,  he  says, 

to  a  degree  of  ignorance,  want,  and  misery  which  must 
touch  every  heart  not  made  of  stone.  In  the  civilised 
world^  there  are  few  sadder  spectacles  than  the  present 
contrast  in  Great  Britain  of  unbounded  wealth  and  luxury 
with  the  starvation  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands, 
crowded  into  dellars  and  dens,  without  ventilation  or  light, 
compared  with  which  the  wigwam  of  the  Indian  is  a  palace. 
Misery,  famine,  brutal  degradation  in  the  neighbourhood 
and  presence  of  stately  mansions,  which  ring  with  gaiety 

slavery  in  question  "could  not  be  much  worse.  .  .  .  The  offspring  of 
the  miserable  women  were  treated  as  if  they  were  cattle;  they  became 
the  property  of  the  owners. " 

^  The  Right  Hon.  Winston  S.  Churchill,  as  reported  in  The  Times  of 
Feb.  8,  1908.  CJ.  Lafcadio  Ream's  Japan :  An  Interpretation,  pp. 
488  seq.,  493-4- 

2  May  I  add,  "or  in  the  uncivilised"? 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     277 

and  dazzle  with  pomp  and  unbounded  profusion,  shock  us 
as  no  other  wretchedness  does.^ 

Let  us  turn  to  another  Western  country  which,  we 
are  often  told,  leads  the  van  of  Western  civilisation. 
Mr.  Weir,  an  American  writer,  says  that  citizens  of 
the  United  States  are  murdered  at  the  rate  of  two 
hundred  a  week,  and  that  crime  costs  the  Republic 
£275,000,000  per  annum,  or  £700,000  a  day. 

The  police  administration  of  the  average  American  city 
is  so  thoroughly  entrenched  behind  the  menacing  power  of 
the  corrupted  ballot  that  it  can  literally  snap  its  fingers  at 
any  law  that  would  set  itself  above  it.  Do  you  know 
that  75  per  cent,  of  the  criminals  who  are  arrested  for  petty 
larceny,  pocket-picking,  hold-ups,  and  the  like  from  the 
red-light  districts  of  New  York  are  freed  by  the  ward 
politicians? 

The  police,  he  says,  torture  their  prisoners,  and  the 
sufferers  are  absolutely  without  redress. 

Ten  thousand  persons  are  murdered  in  this  country 
every  year — shot,  strangled,  poisoned,  stabbed,  or  beaten 
with  a  club  or  a  sand-bag.  Of  the  murderers,  two  in  every 
hundred  are  punished.  The  remaining  ninety-eight  es- 
cape— absolutely  free!  In  many  of  our  States  the  propor- 
tion of  convictions  is  only  half  as  great.  ^ 

From  a  book  written  by  two  American  authors — pro- 
fessors of  philosophy  in  the  Universities  of  Columbia 
and  Chicago — we  learn  that 

many  modem  industries  are  conducted  ^with  more  reference 
to  financial  gain  than  to  life,  and  the  annual  roll  of  killed, 

^  These  words  are  quoted  by  Mr.  W.  S.  Lilly  in  The  Fortnightly  Review, 
Nov.,  1909,  p.  835.     They  occur  in  Dr.  Channing's  Duty  of  Free  States. 
'  Quoted  in  The  Review  of  Reviews,  March,  1910,  p.  269. 


278      Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

injured,  and  diseased  in  factory  and  railway  practically 
equals  the  list  of  dead  and  wounded  in  a  modem  war. 
Most  of  these  accidents  are  preventable.  The  willingness 
of  parents  on  one  side  and  of  employers  on  the  other,  con- 
joined with  the  indifference  of  the  general  public,  makes 
child-labour  an  effective  substitute  for  exposure  of  children 
and  other  methods  of  infanticide  practised  by  savage  tribes. 

These  writers  give  the  following  example  of  American 
indifference  to  the  safety  of  htiman  life : 

It  is  stated,  upon  good  authority,  that  a  street  railway 
system  in  a  large  American  city  declined  to  adopt  an  im- 
proved fender  which  made  it  practically  impossible  to 
kill  persons,  because  the  annual  cost  would  be  $5,000  more 
than  the  existing  expense  for  damages.  This  same  system 
dechned  to  adopt  improved  brakes  which  would  reduce 
accidents  to  life  and  limb;  and  it  was  discovered  that  one 
of  its  directors  was  largely  interested  in  the  manufacture 
of  the  old  brakes.' 

Yet  in  spite  of  this  ultra-Oriental  state  of  barbarity, 
missionaries  still  urge  it  upon  us,  as  one  of  the  reasons 
why  we  should  adopt  the  Western  faith,  that  owing  to 
the  softening  and  inspiring  influence  of  revealed  truth, 
human  life  in  the  Christian  West  is  regarded  with  rever- 
ence as  "God's  high  gift"  ever  to  be  guarded  *'from 
scathe  and  wrong.  ** 

Believing  that  the  essence  of  civilisation  consists  not 
in  the  arts  of  war  but  in  those  of  peace,  the  Chinese  were 
not  wont  to  foster  among  men  an  excessive  admiration 
for  the  military  virtues,  by  which  they  might  be  led  to 
despise  the  civil  virtues  that  can  have  full  play  only 
under  conditions  of  peace  and  security.  Perhaps  Chi- 
nese theory  has  been  pushed  too  far  in  this  direction, 
though  after  all  it  is  only  since  the  coimtry  has  been 

*  Dewey  and  Tufts'  Ethics,  pp.  443-4  (New  York,  1909). 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     279 

faced  by  the  constant  danger  of  aggression  from  the 
belHcose  and  preposterously  over-armed  nations  of 
Europe  that  the  Chinese  system  has  broken  down.  The 
country  is  now  imitating  European  methods,  and  is 
beginning  to  arm,  not  because  it  approves  of  the  mailed- 
fist  form  of  civilisation  (for  which  in  its  heart  China  has 
nothing  but  contempt  and  utter  detestation),  but  be- 
cause it  is  compelled  to  do  so  in  self-defence.  Probably 
there  is  nothing  that  goes  more  to  the  heart  of  the  truly 
patriotic  Chinese  statesman  of  to-day — one  who  still 
reverences  the  old  Chinese  ideals  and  the  doctrines  of 
the  ancient  sages — than  the  fact  that  the  Government 
is  obliged  to  take  the  initiative  in  teaching  the  people 
to  cultivate  the  arts  of  war  and  to  put  military  efficiency 
in  the  forefront  of  the  national  ideals.  M.  Lamairesse, 
in  his  L'Empire  Chinois,  quotes  a  Chinese  imperial 
edict  in  which  occurs  this  significant  observation: 
"Two  sorts  of  Western  strangers  possess  a  desire  td\-\ 
regenerate  China:  these  bid  us  love  our  neighbours  as 
ourselves;  those  sell  us  guns  to  enable  us  to  slaughter 
our  neighbours  from  a  safe  distance. "  Is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  Chinese  hesitate  to  accept  Western 
interpretations  of  the  doctrines  of  peace,  good- will, 
charity,  and  humility  from  the  representatives  of  coun- 
tries which  (as  the  Chinese  now  know  perfectly  well) 
are  constantly  sharpening  their  wits  one  against  another, 
are  profoundly  jealous  of  each  other*s  progress,  sus- 
picious of  each  other's  motives,  and  distrustful  of  each 
other's  politics,  and  are  in  the  habit  of  throwing  away 
billions  of  dollars  annually  on  preparations  for  war?/ 

We  Chinese  do  not  require  to  be  told  that  Christianity 
does  not  inculcate  a  love  of  war,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  Christian  nations  are  the  most  warlike  and  aggres- 
sive of  all  peoples  on  earth.  But  here  we  may  pause  to 
ask,  What  does   Christianity   inculcate?    Or   rather, 


28o     Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

what  are  the  particular  doctrines  and  ideals  which  the 
Christian  West  chooses  to  regard  at  the  present  time  as 
essential  to  true  Christianity?  We  Chinese  find  it 
extraordinarily  difficult  to  obtain  a  clear  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  Christianity?  One  of  the  greatest 
obstacles  that  confront  any  one  who  wishes  to  discuss 
Christian  principles  candidly  and  unreservedly,  or  to 
come  to  "close  grips"  with  Christianity  as  a  body  of 
religious  doctrine,  consists,  as  we  have  already  seen,^ 
in  the  dexterous  manner  in  which  theology  sidles  from 
one  position  into  another  while  stoutly  maintaining  all 
the  time  that  it  has  never  shifted  its  ground,  and  the 
protean  skill  with  which,  by  means  of  ceaseless  reinter- 
pretations,  it  contrives  to  adjust  itself  (with  painful 
awkwardness)  to  ever- varying  conditions,  while  loudly 
proclaiming  that  it  has  hurled  back  all  the  assaults  of 
the  infidel  enemy  and  is  ''the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever."  The  Roman  Catholics,  indeed,  pride 
themselves  on  saying  exactly  what  they  mean — their 
definition  of  transubstantiation,  for  example,  however 
preposterous  the  doctrine  itself  may  be,  is  clear  to 
the  dullest  intelligence^ — and  it  is  therefore  possible 
for  a  Chinese  to  form  a  definite  conception  of  what  the 
doctrines  are  that  he  is  accepting  or  rejecting  when  he 
makes  his  final  decision  for  or  against  the  faith  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Anglican  and 
Protestant  Churches  it  is  not  so  easy  for  him  to  make 
up  his  mind.  If  he  declares  his  unhesitating  disbelief 
in  a  certain  doctrine  or  dogmatic  statement  to-day,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  the  day  after  to-morrow  it  may  be 
reinterpreted  in  such  a  way  that  he  sees  in  it  nothing 

^  See  pp.  29-33,  38-9,  59,  147,  269. 

=»  See,  for  instance,  the  section  entitled  "Catholic  Doctrine  on  the 
Real  Presence"  in  A  Vindication  of  the  Bull  ** Apostolicae  Curae,"  pp. 
24-5  (Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  1898). 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     281 

repugnant  to  his  reason.  For  instance,  the  Anglican 
and  allied  Churches  require  their  adherents,  or  at  least 
their  priests,  to  assent  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  the 
fourth  of  which  states  in  language  that  certainly  seems 
refreshingly  free  from  ambiguity  of  any  kind  that  Christ 
not  only  rose  from  the  dead  but  carried  his  human  flesh 
and  bones  up  to  heaven,  where  he  is  still  sitting.  When 
we  Chinese  assure  our  Western  teachers,  with  emphasis, 
that  we  totally  disbelieve  in  this  monstrous  doctrine, 
and  indeed  regard  it  as  almost  insulting  to  htiman  in- 
telligence that  we  should  be  expected  to  believe  in  it,  we 
are  probably  told  (at  least  by  persons  who  call  them- 
selves liberal  theologians)  that  the  real  meaning  of  the 
Article  is  quite  different  from  what  its  plain  words  seem 
to  indicate,  and  that  as  reinterpreted  it  contains  nothing 
to  which  any  reasonable  mind  could  possibly  object. 
Liberal  theologians  seem  to  overlook  the  fact  that  when 
the  Thirty -nine  Articles  were  drawn  up  they  were  ac- 
companied by  a  declaration  to  the  effect  that  **no  man 
hereafter  shall  either  print,  or  preach,  to  draw  the 
Article  aside  any  way,  but  shall  submit  to  it  in  the  plain 
and  full  meaning  thereof:  and  shall  not  put  his  own 
sense  or  comment  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  Article,  hut 
shall  take  it  in  the  literal  and  grammatical  sense.  ^^  It 
may  be  replied  that  this  preliminary  declaration  has 
no  binding  force.  In  form,  indeed,  it  is  merely  the 
ipse  dixit  of  the  English  sovereign — the  "supreme  head, 
on  earth,  of  the  Church  of  England";  but  at  least  it 
unmistakably  shows  that  the  theologians  who  drew  up 
the  Articles  deliberately  put  them  into  the  plainest 
language  possible,  for  the  express  purpose  of  leaving  no 
loophole  for  any  reinterpretation  of  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  of  abolishing  those  "curi- 
ous and  unhappy  differences  which  have  for  so  many 
hundred  years,  in  different  times  and  places,  exercised 


282     Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

the  Church  of  Christ. ' '  If  modem  theologians  read  into 
the  Articles  new  meanings  that  are  not  in  accordance 
with  their  "Hteral  and  grammatical  sense, "  it  is  evident 
that  they  have  in  principle  abrogated  the  Articles  and 
merely  retain  them  in  the  Prayer  Book  as  a  kind  of 
fetish ;  for  it  is  obvious  that  the  significance  of  language 
lies  not  in  words  as  such,  but  in  the  meaning  which  they 
are  intended  to  convey.  The  theologians  of  1562  un- 
doubtedly meant  what  they  said.  If  you  now  retain 
their  words  but  put  new  meanings  into  them  it  is  absurd 
to  maintain  that  your  theology  is  the  same  as  theirs. 
The  spirit  is  changed,  the  letter  remains ;  to  whom  or  to 
what  are  you  showing  respect  or  reverence  when  you 
keep  the  written  word  but  empty  it  of  the  meaning  that 
properly  belongs  to  it,  and  fill  it  to  the  brim  with  a  new 
meaning  of  your  own?  Such  considerations  as  these 
are  more  serious  than  they  appear  to  be,  for  they  do  not 
affect  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  only ;  they  affect  also  the 
Creeds  and  the  Bible. 

The  Roman  Catholics  still  hold,  as  a  necessary  article 
of  faith,  that  the  Scriptures  are  absolutely  exempt  from 
error  of  any  kind,  and  were  directly  inspired  by  God 
himself,  though  the  sole  right  of  interpretation  is  re- 
served to  the  infallible  Church.  Protestant  views  of 
biblical  inspiration  have  varied  enormously,  from  the 
Reformation  up  to  the  present  time;  but  the  following 
is  noteworthy  as  an  indication  of  the  ridiculous  extreme 
to  which  "inspirationists'*  were  prepared  to  go: 

Quenstedt  holds  that  everything  in  Scripture  comes 
from  the  infallible  divine  assistance  and  direction,  from  a 
special  suggestion  and  dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  he 
says  that  because  Scripture  is  inspired  it  is  of  infallible 
truth  and  free  from  every  error;  canonical  Scripture  con- 
tains no  lie,  no  falsehood,  not  the  very  slightest  error  either 
in  fact  or  in  word ;  whatever  things  it  relates,  all  and  every 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     283 

one  of  them,  are  of  the  very  highest  truth,  whether  they 
be  ethical  or  historical,  chronological,  typographical,  or 
verbal;  there  is  no  ignorance,  no  want  ot  knowledge,  no 
forgetfulness,  no  lapse  of  memory  in  Scripture.^ 

When  the  Bible  was  shown  to  be  a  medley  of  myths, 
folk-tales,  poems,  fables,  and  more  or  less  veracious 
historical  narratives,  and  to  be  plentifully  sprinkled 
with  errors  of  fact,  philosophical  crudities,  and  bad 
morality,  the  Churches  found  themselves  faced  by  the 
difficult  task  of  reconstructing  the  bases  of  religion  with- 
out disturbing  the  faith  of  the  unlearned  multitude.  It 
was  a  very  natural  instinct  that  impelled  them  to  resist 
to  the  utmost  of  their  power  the  assaults  on  biblical 
inerrancy.  Orthodox  Catholics,  of  course,  treated 
criticism  with  a  lofty  contempt,  and  continue  to  do  so 
to  this  day,  but  the  Protestants,  having  no  infallible 
Church  at  their  backs,  felt  obliged  to  take  up  the  chal- 
lenge thrown  down  by  the  critics.  Unable  to  sustain 
their  stupendous  claim  in  its  entirety,  and  compelled 
at  last  most  reluctantly  to  admit  that  in  matters  of 
historical  fact  the  Bible  was  not  wholly  free  from  error, 
they  made  brave  attempts  to  establish  themselves  in  the 
new  position  that  the  Bible  did  not  profess  to  teach 
history  or  science,  but  the  proper  relations  between  God 
and  man ;  and  that,  although  mistakes  in  matters  of  fact 
might  have  occurred  through  the  imperfections  of  the 
human  instruments  employed  by  the  Deity  in  communi- 
cating his  revelation  to  mankind,  this  liability  to  error 
in  no  way  affected  the  majesty  and  eternal  truth  of  the 

^  Prof.  T.  M.  Lindsay,  D.D.,  in  the  Encydopcedia  Britannica,  9th  ed., 
s.v.  "Inspiration."  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  almost  identical  views 
have  been  held  and  expressed  by  Brahmans  and  Mohammedans  con- 
cerning the  Veda  and  the  Koran;  and  I  understand  that  very  similar 
claims  have  been  made  on  behalf  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  and  the  works 
of  Mrs.  Eddy. 


284     Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

moral  and  religious  teachings  enshrined  in  the  sacred 
canon.  Alas,  even  from  this  position  the  bibliolaters 
are  fast  being  driven  away,  and  now  they  are  seeking 
refuge  in  the  somewhat  nebulous  theory  of  "progressive 
revelation.'* 

Only  a  few  years  ago  a  Christian  who  questioned  the 
moral  perfection  of  both  Old  and  New  Testaments 
would  have  been  regarded  as  little  better  than  a  criminal. 
A  few  generations  ago  he  would  have  been  in  danger  of 
a  piteous  death  by  fire.  But  so  rapid  have  been  the 
theological  changes  of  modern  times  that  even  high- 
placed  Church  dignitaries  can  speak  their  mind  candidly 
on  the  subject  without  fear  even  of  such  a  mild  pimish- 
ment  as  ecclesiastical  censure.  Writing  of  the  theory 
of  the  infallibility  of  Scripture,  the  Bishop  of  Birming- 
ham says  that,  according  to  this  theory,  "no  seemingly 
scientific  or  historical  statement  of  Scripture  could  be 
otherwise  than  true.  Now  I  do  not  think  I  am  ex- 
aggerating when  I  say  that  that  position  has  been 
riddled  by  modem  science  and  historical  criticism, 
and  is  no  longer  reasonably  tenable.  It  is  cruelty  to 
yoimg  people  to  bring  them  up  in  the  belief  that  a 
statement  about  natural  processes,  or  a  statement  in 
historical  form,  is  necessarily  true  because  it  is  in  the 
Bible. "^  Prof.  Sanday  remarks  that  "scholars  have 
been  compelled  to  point  out,  in  the  interest  of  truth, 
that  this  definition  [of  biblical  infallibility]  will  not 
hold."^    A  third  high  ecclesiastical  authority  is 

bold  to  maintain  that  we  assume  all  too  easily  the  fitness 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  moral  in- 
struction .  .  .  the  moral  difficulties  of  the  Old  Testament 

^From  "The  Old  Theory  of  Inspiration,"  in  New  Theology  Lectures, 
by  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham. 

2  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Recent  Research  (Oxford,  1907). 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     285 

are  by  no  means  limited  to  certain  episodes  and  passages 
which  we  may  call  classical,  such  as  the  destruction  of  the 
Canaanites,  Deborah's  praise  of  the  treachery  of  Jael,  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac,  the  deception  of  Jacob,  and  Jephthah's 
vow.  Ethical  problems  manifest  themselves  on  almost 
every  page,  and  are  woven  into  the  very  texture  of  the  whole. 
.  .  .  Must  not  careful  reservations  be  made  before  we 
explicitly  maintain  that  this  heterogeneous  material,  con- 
taining elements  so  crude  and  contradictory,  is  fitted  for 
laying  the  foundations  of  Christian  character?  .  .  .  We 
have  plain  proof  of  lack  of  principle  in  the  fact  that  the 
Church  of  England,  impelled  by  tradition,  still  orders  the 
reading  of  passages  which  in  any  other  connection  would 
be  sternly  repressed.  .  .  .  God  is  continuously  repre- 
sented as  speaking  and  acting  in  ways  which  offend  our  moral 
sense.  He  issues  commands  to  slaughter  even  the  babes 
unborn.  Many  of  his  punishments  are  wholesale  and 
capricious.  He  gives  his  formal  approval  of  slavery, 
allowing  little  children  to  be  bought  and  sold  as  well  as 
adults.  He  provides  that  Jewish  slaves  shall  be  more 
kindly  treated  than  other  slaves.  He  gives  the  strange 
law  that  a  man  shall  not  be  punished  for  beating  his  slave 
to  death  if  the  poor  assaulted  wretch  does  not  die  out  of 
hand  but  lingers  for  a  day  or  two ;  and  adds  the  still  stranger 
reason  that  the  slave  is  his  owner's  money.  Such  are  some 
of  the  more  striking  instances  from  what  constitutes  a 
fairly  homogeneous  whole. ^ 

1  fear  that  these  courageous  expressions  of  opinion 
on  the  part  of  two  bishops  and  an  ecclesiastical  pro- 
fessor will  not  be  received  with  applause  by  the  great 
majority  of  missionaries  in  China.  ^    At  present  there  is 

*  These  remarkable  admissions  are  not  the  statements  of  an  Agnostic 
or  Rationalist,  but  of  the  Right  Rev.  J.  Edward  Mercer,  D.D.,  Bishop 
of  Tasmania.     (See  The  Hihhert  Journal,  Jan.,  1909,  pp.  333  seq.). 

2  It  may  be  noted  that  the  bibliolaters  are  still  devoting  themselves 
with  all  the  old  energy  to  scattering  the  Scriptures  broadcast  through  the 
world.     The  following  quotation  is  from  China's  Millions  of  May,  1909, 


286      Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

a  scheme  on  foot  to  obtain  subscriptions  from  Chinese 
Christians  with  a  view  to  presenting  the  Httle  Emperor 
of  China  with  a  beautiful  copy  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures in  Chinese.  Is  it  too  late  to  implore  the  promoters 
of  this  scheme  to  give  most  earnest  consideration  to  the 
words  with  which  the  Bishop  of  Tasmania  closes  his 
fearlessly-spoken  article? 

We  are  still  slaves  to  imperfect  theories  and  worn-out 
preconceptions.  It  is  bad  enough  to  raise  such  moral 
discords  in  acts  of  public  worship.  It  is  still  worse  to  set 
vibrating  such  moral  discords  in  what  Plato  calls  "the 
tender  souls  of  children,"  which,  "like  blocks  of  wax,"  are 
ready  to  take  any  impression,  and  which  are  so  quickly 
deformed  and  distorted.^. 

We  Chinese  possess  an  ethical  literature  of  our  own 
which  we  firmly  believe  to  be  fully  equal  in  value  to  the 
whole  Christian  Bible,  and  immensely  superior  to  the 

p.  77:  '*The  Bible  in  China. — The  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society, 
we  are  thankful  to  learn,  issued  last  year  more  than  one  and  a  half 
million  copies  of  the  Scriptures.  This  is,  we  believe,  the  first  time  that 
the  figure  of  one  and  a  half  million  has  been  passed  by  this  one  Society. 
It  will  be  interesting  to  know  what  the  actual  circulation  was,  for  all  the 
Scriptures  issued  to  the  agencies  are  not  necessarily  put  into  circulation 
the  same  year.  During  1907  the  circulation  was  1,212,409,  which  was 
well  in  advance  of  previous  years,  so  that  it  appears  probable  that  the 
circulation  in  1908  will  be  at  least  equally  high,  if  not  in  advance.  This 
large  and  increasing  demand  for  the  Scriptures  is  a  sign  which  cannot 
but  rejoice  the  heart  of  all  believers. " 

In  Present  Day  Conditions  in  China,  published  by  the  China  Inland 
Mission  in  1908,  a  pictorial  diagram  is  given  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
veying to  the  imagination  some  idea  of  the  prodigious  circulation  of 
the  Bible  in  China.  According  to  this  work,  "the  total  circulation  of  the 
Word  of  God  in  China  from  the  commencement  up  to  1907"  amounted 
to  379,243  Bibles,  2,347,057  New  Testaments,  and  31,128,939  portions, 
or  33,855,239  in  all.  The  societies  mainly  responsible  for  this  result  are 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  the  National  Bible  Society  of 
Scotland,  and  the  American  Bible  Society. 

*  The  Hibbert  Journal,  Jan.,  1909,  p.  345. 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     287 

Old  Testament  taken  alone.  I  will  venture  to  assert 
that  it  is  highly  undesirable  that  the  imperial  tutors 
should  allow  themselves  to  be  persuaded  to  use  the  Old 
Testament  as  a  basis  for  our  young  Emperor's  moral 
education,  and  there  are  patriotic  Chinese  who  would 
most  strenuously  resist  any  proposal  of  the  kind. 

The  older  generation  of  missionaries  came  to  China 
armed  with  a  verbally-inspired  and  infallible  sacred 
book  and  a  set  of  absolutely  and  imiquely  true  doctrinal 
formulas  which  had  been  specially  revealed  to  them  by 
the  Creator  of  the  Universe;  and  with  these  weapons 
they  prepared  to  take  the  citadels  of  Oriental  religion  by 
storm.  ^' China,  **  said  one  of  them,  "is,  all  things  con- 
sidered, the  Gibraltar,  the  Sevastopol,  of  heathenism. "  ^ 
The  same  writer  was  distressed  to  find  that  the  Chinese 
regarded  the  inexpressibly  crude  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body  not  only  *'  with  undisguised  unbelief," 
but  also  "with  open  ridicule  and  contempt,"  and  he 
was  no  less  disgusted  to  perceive  that  they  "cling  most 
fondly  to  the  sentiments  of  Confucius  and  Mencius,  and 
most  tenaciously  to  the  dogmas  of  Taoism  and  Bud- 
dhism. The  finest,  most  acute,  and  best-educated  talent  of 
Christendom  is  required  to  show  them  the  absurdity,  the 
insufficiency,  and  the  sinfulness  of  these  sentiments  and 
these  dogmas,  and  to  teach  them  a  more  excellent  and 
a  perfect  way."^  The  task  was  perhaps  beyond  the 
powers  even  of  the  finest,  most  acute,  and  best-educated 
minds  of  Christendom,  for  certainly  none  of  our  Western 
teachers  have  yet  succeeded  in  convincing  us  that  the 
sentiments  of  Confucius  and  Mencius  are  either  absurd 
or  sinful.  If  Confucianism  and  Buddhism  are  in  some 
respects  insufficient  for  all  our  spiritual  and  moral  needs, 
it  is  far  from  certain  that  we  shall  exchange  them  for  so 

'  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese,  by  the  Rev.  Justus  Doolittle  (1868),  p.  607. 
2  Ihid.,  p.  608.     (The  italics  are  mine.) 


288     Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation 

elusive  a  system  as  Christianity,  though  it  is  not  improb- 
able that  we  shall,  more  Christiano,  adapt  our  own  reli- 
gion to  the  changed  ideals  and  new  conditions  of  modem 
times  by  putting  it  through  a  process  of  modification 
and  re-interpretation.  In  that  case  we  shall  certainly 
consider  ourselves  at  perfect  liberty  to  adopt,  modify, 
or  make  what  use  we  please  of  all  that  we  consider  good 
and  noble  and  inspiring  in  the  Christian  or  in  any  other 
system  of  religion  or  ethics. 

The  early  missionaries  (not  to  mention  some  of  their 
successors  still  in  China),  full  of  bigotry  and  ignorance, 
took  the  inadequacy  and  sinfulness  of  our  native  re- 
ligion and  philosophy  for  granted,  simply  because  they 
were  not  of  Christian  origin.  In  their  eyes  everything 
good  was  Christian,  and  what  was  not  Christian  could 
only  be  bad.  So  Confucius  and  Buddha  were  consigned 
to  hell,  and  we  Chinese  were  assured  that  we  should  all 
follow  our  revered  ancestors  to  the  same  disagreeable 
abode  unless  we  hastened  to  believe  in  the  "glad  tidings" 
of  Christianity.  As  time  went  on  and  the  abler  and 
more  enlightened  missionaries  began  to  make  a  more 
or  less  serious  study  of  our  native  literature  and  philo- 
sophy, and  the  comparative  study  of  religions  began  to 
open  out  new  vistas  of  unimagined  knowledge  to  the 
startled  minds  of  European  scholars,  the  old  arrogance 
and  intolerance  began  to  show  signs  of  melting  away; 
but  it  has  not  vanished  yet,  and  cannot  vanish  so  long 
as  a  considerable  proportion  of  our  Western  teachers 
cling  to  the  assumption  that  Christianity  (in  one  or 
other  of  its  multitudinous  and  ever-changing  forms)  is 
the  exclusive  depositary  of  truth,  and  the  sole  medium 
through  which  the  wicked  hearts  of  men  may  be  induced 
to  follow  what  is  right  and  good. 

This  assumption  is  inherent  even  in  the  writings  of 
missionaries  who  have  taken  an  intelligent  interest  in 


Eastern  and  Western  Civilisation     289 

non-Christian  religions.  Dr.  Edkins  seems  to  think  he 
is  uttering  a  serious  condemnation  of  Chinese  religious 
theories  when  he  declares  that 

an  ethical  test  is  the  only  one  they  know.  When  the 
evidence  of  a  new  religion  is  presented  to  them,  they  at 
once  refer  it  to  a  moral  standard,  and  give  their  approval 
with  the  utmost  readiness  if  it  passes  the  test.  They  do 
not  ask  whether  it  is  divine,  but  whether  it  is  good.  This 
tolerant  mode  of  viewing  other  religions  is  one  of  the  effects 
of  the  introduction  of  Buddhism  into  China.  The  Chinese 
having  this  mode  of  viewing  religions  as  equally  good,  the 
difficulty  often  felt  by  the  Christian  missionary  in  persuad- 
ing them  to  believe  in  the  religion  of  Christ  will  be  easily 
perceived.  He  may  prove  its  divinity,  but  this  does  not 
go  far  with  a  latitudinarian  people,  who  give  their  assent 
equally  to  all  systems  that  have  a  good  moral  code.^ 

It  was  the  purpose  of  Dr.  Edkins  to  show  how  inade- 
quate and  erroneous  are  the  Chinese  notions  of  religion, 
and  the  missionary  bias  in  this  passage  is  evident ;  but 
even  if  we  accept  his  statements  at  their  face- value,  it  is 
an  open  question  whether  they  do  not  speak  as  well  for 
the  Chinese  as  for  the  European  point  of  view.  When 
introduced  to  a  foreign  religion,  says  this  worthy  mis- 
sionary, the  Chinese  do  not  ask  whether  it  is  divine,  hut 
whether  it  is  good.  Granting  the  correctness  of  this 
statement,  as  I  believe  we  well  may  (for  the  prevalent 
philosophical  attitude  of  the  Chinese  is  imdoubtedly 
pragmatic),  have  we,  after  all,  very  much  to  be  ashamed 
of  ?  Surely  we  may  reasonably  contend  that  if,  regarding 
the  good  as  of  secondary  importance,  we  were  to  devote 
ourselves  to  a  search  for  the  divine,  we  might  end  by 
obtaining  neither;  whereas  if  we  seek  and  find  the  good, 
we  may  safely  leave  the  divine  to  find  its  own  way  to  us. 

'  Religion  of  China  (revised  ed.,  1893),  by  Joseph  Edkins,  D.D.,  pp. 
74-5. 

19 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WESTERN   EDUCATION   IN   CHINA  AND  THE  UNITED 
UNIVERSITIES  SCHEME 

ONE  of  the  most  momentous  political  movements 
of  the  last  half-century  has  been  the  rapid  rise 
of  an  Oriental  state  into  the  ranks  of  the  Great 
Powers.  Had  this  extraordinary  event  never  taken 
place,  had  Japan  been  content  to  remain  in  a  con- 
dition of  what  used  to  be  called  Oriental  seclusion, 
there  might  have  been  comparatively  little  interest 
shown  to-day  in  the  birth  of  a  new  China;  but  there 
is  now  a  vague  feeling  in  the  Western  mind  that 
what  Japan  has  done  on  a  comparatively  small  scale 
may  be  done  on  an  immensely  greater  scale  by  an 
awakened  China,  and  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
great  continental  empire  is  intensified  accordingly. 
The  question  that  many  Western  people  are  now  be- 
ginning to  ask  themselves  with  some  anxiety  is  this: 
if  a  comparatively  small  and  poor  Oriental  nation, 
regarded  by  their  grandfathers  as  powerless  and  un- 
civilised, can  earn  for  herself  by  sheer  prowess  in  the 
arts  of  war  and  peace  the  splendid  ** place  in  the  sun'* 
that  Japan  now  occupies,  what  will  be  the  future  posi- 
tion of  a  neighbouring  state  that  possesses  far  superior 
resources,  a  much  vaster  area,  and  a  population  equally 
hardy,  industrious,  and  intelligent,  and  ten  times  greater 
in  numbers? 

A  secret  of  Japan's  success  was  that,  in  spite  of  her 

290 


Western  Education  in  China         291 

full  acceptance  of  Western  teaching  and  example  in 
matters  of  political  and  scientific  equipment,  she  never 
cut  herself  wholly  adrift  from  her  own  past  in  respect  of 
her  social,  moral,  and  religious  traditions  and  ideals. 
But  in  China  there  is  a  large  class  of  would-be  reformers 
who  seem  to  aim  at  nothing  less  than  the  creation  of  a 
bridgeless  chasm  between  the  Old  China  and  the  New, 
and  this  constitutes  one  of  the  most  serious  dangers  that 
the  empire  will  have  to  face  during  the  early  years  of 
its  new  career.  Thus  a  statesmanlike  solution  of  the 
educational  problem  is  perhaps  the  most  pressing  duty 
that  confronts  the  wise  men  of  China  to-day,  for  the 
manner  in  which  this  problem  is  solved  is  likely  to  be 
the  chief  factor  in  determining  China's  future  rank 
among  the  nations  of  the  world.  So  far,  the  great 
question  of  education  has  not  been  treated  with  a  tithe 
of  the  seriousness  it  deserves.  It  is  true  enough  that 
schools  and  colleges  have  been  springing  up  in  all  parts 
of  the  coimtry  during  recent  years,  and  some  good  work 
has  been  done  by  various  missionary  schools  and  colleges, 
but  the  nimiber  of  properly  equipped  and  adequately 
staffed  schools  is  still  very  small  in  proportion  to  the 
needs  of  the  vast  population  of  China.  Most  of  the 
existing  establishments  may  be  regarded  as  representa- 
tive of  haphazard  experimental  movements  in  education 
rather  than  as  the  result  of  a  definite  educational  policy. 
At  present  the  kind  of  Western  learning  that  the 
Chinese  are  desirous  of  acquiring  is  chiefly  of  a  scientific 
and  technical  character.  This  is  all  very  well  as  far  as 
it  goes,  but  what  many  of  China's  own  sons,  and  some  of 
her  sympathetic  Western  friends,  observe  with  sorrow 
is  that  while  she  is  beginning  to  show  immerited  con- 
tempt for  her  old  Confucian  ideals,  with  their  ethical 
and  social  superstructure,  she  has  nothing  ready  to  take 
their  place.    Her  admiration,  such  as  it  is,  of  Western 


292         Western  Education  in  China 

civilisation,  confines  itself  to  the  materialistic  develop- 
ments of  that  civilisation;  and  while  she  may  accomplish 
much  in  the  direction  of  the  nourishment  of  the  body 
it  is  feared  that  she  may  be  endangering  her  ultimate 
welfare  by  impoverishing  the  soul.  What  is  to  be  done 
about  the  nurture  of  China's  soul  is,  indeed,  a  question 
that  is  being  debated  with  great  earnestness  by  aca- 
demic and  religious  leaders  in  England  and  America, 
and  several  schemes  have  already  been  put  forward  to 
give  effect  to  the  various  conclusions  at  which  they  have 
so  far  arrived. 

This  is  pre-eminently  an  age  of  soul-study.  Not 
content  with  investigating  the  state  of  his  own  soul,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  fond  of  scrutinising  (with  no  unworthy 
aim)  the  souls  of  his  neighbours.  And  thus  he  has 
devoted  whole  books  to  the  analysis  of  the  Soul  of  the 
Far  East,  the  Soul  of  the  Burmese,  the  Soul  of  the 
Negro,  the  Soul  of  the  Turk,  the  Soul  of  Spain,  while 
the  Soul  of  the  Japanese  has  had  nimierous  enthusi- 
astic interpreters.  China  also  has  a  Soul,  though  most 
people  seem  to  think  it  is  but  a  poor  thing.  The  Christ- 
ian missionaries  have  known  of  its  existence  for  a  long 
time,  but  as  their  object  is  to  save  it  from  eternal  ruin 
they  are  perhaps  rather  too  apt  to  take  a  gloomy  view  of 
its  present  condition.  Yet  if  it  be  not  of  the  kind  that 
soars  (though  why  not?)  there  really  seems  to  be  no  suf- 
ficient reason  for  consigning  it  to  the  Bottomless  Pit.  If 
the  Chinese,  in  their  anxiety  to  acquire  Western  civilisa- 
tion, are  showing  a  greater  relish  for  its  practical  and 
material  results  than  for  its  religious  and  ethical  accom- 
paniments, this  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  culture, 
high  thinking,  the  pursuit  of  ^'sweetness  and  light, "  are 
distasteful  to  the  Chinese  mind.  The  Chinese  them- 
selves have  produced  poets,  artists,  philosophers,  reli- 
gious thinkers,  whose  merits  will  some  day  receive  from 


Western  Education  in  China  293 

Europe  very  much  higher  tributes  of  admiration  than 
they  have  received  hitherto,  and  will  afford  ample  proof 
that  the  Chinese  are  far  from  being  a  "soulless"  people. 
Yet  it  is  unquestionably  most  right  and  fitting  that 
the  people  of  China  should  be  taught  something  of  the 
nobler  ideals  as  well  as  the  material  accomplishments 
of  the  West,  if  only  in  order  that  their  respect  for  their 
foreign  teachers  may  not,  some  day,  give  place  to  a 
dangerous  contempt — dangerous  to  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica as  to  China  herself.  For,  indeed,  the  present 
anxiety  of  the  Western  peoples  to  teach  the  Chinese 
something  of  the  higher  flights  of  the  Occidental  mind 
in  the  sublime  regions  of  religion,  imaginative  litera- 
ture, philosophy,  and  art  is  perhaps  based  to  no  small 
extent  on  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  There  seems 
to  be  a  vague  feeling  that  if  China,  having  cut  herself 
adrift  from  her  own  traditional  culttire,  acquires  the 
secrets  of  yotir  material  successes  without  being  initi- 
ated into  your  moral  and  spiritual  ideals,  she  may 
possibly  develop  into  an  amazingly  prosperous,  but 
cruel,  sensual,  selfish,  and  cynical  tyrant  who,  having 
become  equipped  with  every  modern  engine  of  industry 
and  warfare,  will  proceed  to  hurl  four  hundred  million 
Frankenstein-monsters  against  the  towers  and  citadels 
of  Western  civilisation.^  Whether  a  sense  of  this 
danger  exists  or  not,  it  seems  clear  that,  if  so  huge  a 
nation  as  the  Chinese — embracing  a  quarter  of  the 
world's  population — has  decided  to  take  lessons  in  civili- 
sation from  the  nations  of  the  West,  it  is  of  the  utmost 

^  Lord  Hugh  Cecil,  M.P.,  speaking  at  the  Mansion  House,  London,  in 
support  of  the  United  Universities  Scheme,  in  March,  19 lo,  prophesied 
that  the  results  of  the  awakening  of  China  "would  far  surpass  in  interest 
all  domestic  politics  and  all  foreign  politics.  .  .  .  What  was  in  doubt 
was  whether  China  one  hundred  years  hence  would  be  a  beneficent 
influence,  or  one  beyond  experience  and  almost  beyond  imagination 
destructive  and  dangerous." — The  Weekly  Times,  March  18,  1910. 


294         Western  Education  in  China 

importance  that  the  teachings  should  not  be  only  of 
the  kind  that  will  result  in  the  construction  of  shipyards, 
factories,  mills,  battleships,  railways,  telegraphs,  and 
aeroplanes. 

Of  the  various  schemes  that  have  recently  been 
framed  with  a  view  to  instructing  the  Chinese  in  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  sides  of  Western  civilisation,  one  of 
the  most  important  is  that  known  as  the  China  Emer- 
gency Scheme.  Its  promoters  ask  for  a  sum  of  at  least 
£100,000  "in  order  that  existing  philanthropic  and  re- 
ligious societies  in  China  may  establish  work  involving 
capital  outlay  which  these  societies  could  not  provide.'* 
As  to  the  allocation  of  the  ftmds,  it  is  proposed  that 
£40,000  should  be  granted  for  medical  training  colleges, 
£40,000  for  "institutions  for  the  education  of  Chinese 
Christian  teachers  and  pastors,"  and  the  remaining 
£20,000  for  "the  translation  and  publication  of  the  best 
Western  literature."  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  a  great 
portion  of  the  large  sum  of  money  which  the  British 
and  American  public  and  others  are  asked  to  subscribe 
is  to  be  applied  to  the  extension  of  the  work  that  has 
been  carried  on  for  many  years  past  by  the  various 
Protestant  missions.  For  the  medical  and  surgical 
work  done  by  the  medical  missions,  no  praise  can  be  too 
high.  Perhaps  no  philanthropic  enterprise  in  the  world 
is  deserving  of  warmer  encotiragement  or  more  generous 
support.  Nor  can  any  exception  be  taken  to  the  dis- 
semination in  China  of  "the  best  Western  literature,'* 
provided  that  the  choice  of  what  is  best  be  entrusted  to 
cultivated  men  of  letters  rather  than  to  persons  whose 
literary  judgments  are  apt  to  be  biassed  by  theological 
prepossessions.  The  value  of  the  work  done  by  the 
purely  evangelical  missions  is  more  open  to  question, 
as  I  hope  the  foregoing  pages  have  done  something  to 
prove. 


Western  Education  in  China         295 

In  the  view  of  the  promoters  of  this  scheme,  and  of 
numerous  other  men  and  women  in  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica, the  higher  aspects  of  Western  civiHsation  which  it 
is  so  necessary  should  be  revealed  to  the  Chinese  may- 
be fotmd  in  Christianity,  and  can  be  found  nowhere  else. 
Let  us  leave  the  discussion  of  this  point  for  the  present 
and  pass  to  the  consideration  of  another  proposal — 
that  known  as  the  ''United  Universities  Scheme. *' ^  To 
avoid  unintentional  misrepresentation,  I  quote  the  fol- 
lowing passages  from  an  authoritative  letter  addressed 
by  the  Committee  to  The  Times  and  published  in  the 
issue  of  July  29,  1909: 

Our  Committee  is  quite  distinct  from  the  China  Emer- 
gency Committee,  having  been  formed  in  March,  1908,  of 
resident  graduates  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  shortly 
afterwards  joined  by  the  Rev.  Lord  William  Cecil,  Sir  E. 
M.  Satow  (late  his  Majesty's  Minister  at  Peking),  and 
others.  ...  It  became  clear  to  them  that  at  the  present 
crisis  of  moral  and  intellectual  upheaval  the  great  need 
of  China  is  a  university  to  bring  the  highest  traditions  of 
Western  education  into  the  heart  of  the  country,  and  so 
to  promote  that  fusion  of  the  best  in  Eastern  and  Western 
thought,  and  that  better  mutual  understanding  between 
China  and  the  West,  which  is  of  such  vital  importance  for 
the  future  of  the  whole  human  race.  .  .  .  Western  edu- 
cation, as  it  is  at  present  being  eagerly  absorbed  by  the 
youth  of  China,  brings  with  it  great  dangers.  It  destroys 
all  the  old  religious  and  moral  sanctions,  and  puts  nothing 
in  their  place.  A  university,  therefore,  which  gave  intel- 
lectual, and  neglected  moral,  education  would  be  of  doubt- 
ful value.     It  is  not  sufficient,  therefore,  to  provide  a  stafiE 

^  No  reference  is  made  in  these  pages  to  the  important  scheme  (already- 
being  realised)  for  establishing  a  university  in  Hongkong.  The  fact 
that  this  university  will  be  in  British  territory,  and  to  some  extent  under 
British  Government  control,  differentiates  the  scheme  from  those  now 
under  consideration. 


296         Western  Education  in  China 

of  able  and  efficient  professors,  though  this  is  essential. 
The  students  must  reside  in  colleges  or  hostels,  under  some 
kind  of  moral  discipline  and  supervision.  Most,  if  not  all, 
of  the  hostels  in  our  proposed  university  would  be  controlled 
by  Christian  bodies,  and  these  would  naturally  provide 
religious  instruction  within  their  walls  on  the  lines  of  their 
own  denominations.  The  students,  however,  would  not 
necessarily  be  Christian,  nor  would  they  be  unduly  in- 
fluenced to  become  such.  The  professors  will  not  be  re- 
quired to  submit  to  any  religious  tests  or  to  teach  religious 
subjects,  but  they  must  be  men  in  complete  sympathy 
with  Christian  ideals.' 

The  letter  goes  on  to  say  that  Hankow,  which,  with 
the  adjacent  cities  of  Wuchang  and  Hanyang,  consti- 
tutes the  commercial  and  industrial  capital  of  Central 
China,  has  been  selected  as  ''the  most  central  and  com- 
manding site"  for  the  proposed  university.  There  are 
large  numbers  of  missionaries  in  this  locality,  and 

there  already  exist  three  considerable  Christian  colleges, 
English  and  American,  of  different  denominations,  all  of 
which  have  expressed  a  keen  desire  to  federate  roimd  a 
central  professoriate  founded  on  the  lines  we  suggest.^ 
Thus  a  substantial  nucleus  of  the  university  is  already 
in  esse. 

It  is  natural  enough  that  in  looking  for  a  suitable  site 
for  the  university,  the  Committee  should,  in  the  circimi- 
stances,  be  strongly  inclined  to  favour  Hankow,  but  it 
is  to  be  hoped  that  this  point  will  not  be  decided  too 
hastily.  If  the  imiversity  is  to  be  to  China  what  Oxford 

*  Does  this  mean  the  ideals  taught  by  Christ,  or  does  it  mean  the  ideals 
of  Western  I  civilisation  which,  arbitrarily  or  otherwise,  have  been 
brought  into  association  with  Christianity? 

'  The  three  colleges  referred  to  are  doubtless  the  Griffith  John  College 
in  Hankow,  Boone  College  in  Wuchang,  and  the  Wesleyan  College. 


Western  Education  in  China         297 

and  Cambridge  are  to  England,  it  will  appear  to  many 
old  Oxonians  and  Cantabs  now  resident  in  the  Far  East 
that  no  worse  situation  could  possibly  be  chosen  than 
that  of  Hankow  and  its  sister-cities,  in  spite  of  (partly 
in  consequence  of)  the  fact  that  those  cities  are  to- 
gether destined,  in  all  probability,  to  become  one  of  the 
busiest  centres  of  the  world.  One  of  the  most  character- 
istic features  of  the  University  of  Oxford  is  the  highly 
privileged  position  that  it  occupies  in  Oxford  city.  The 
civic  authorities  are  in  many  respects  overshadowed 
by  the  high  academic  dignitaries;  the  University  has 
jurisdiction  over  its  undergradustes  even  in  the  streets 
of  the  town ;  no  public  entertainment  can  take  place  in 
Oxford  without  the  permission  of  the  Vice-Chancellor ; 
strict  rules  govern  the  behaviour  of  every  imdergraduate 
both  within  and  without  the  actual  academic  precincts; 
his  college  professes  to  look  after  his  interests  (and  does 
so  with  very  considerable  success)  not  only  during 
lecture  hours  but  during  his  leisure  time  also.  All  this 
can  be  done  with  comparative  ease,  because  Oxford, 
as  a  city,  is  dominated  by  its  great  University.  If  the 
colleges  were  transferred  to  London,  Manchester,  or 
Glasgow,  the  whole  system  would  have  to  be  reorganised 
and  some  of  the  characteristic  features  of  Oxford  as  a 
training-groimd  for  yoimg  Englishmen  would  neces- 
sarily crumble  to  pieces.  The  same  remarks  apply,  of 
course,  with  equal  force  to  Cambridge.  Now  one  of 
the  main  objects  of  the  proposed  Chinese  university, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  to  supply  the  youth  of  China  with 
a  moral  as  well  as  with  an  intellectual  training.  That  a 
university  at  Hankow  would  be  commercially  successful 
there  cannot  be  the  least  doubt;  that  it  would  be 
thronged  with  eager  students  is  imquestionable ;  that 
it  would  become  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  intellectual 
centre  of  China  or   of   Asia    is  not    impossible;  but 


298         Western  Education  in  China 

such  moral  lustre  as  it  might  be  capable  of  radiating 
would  be  sadly  dimmed  by  the  mists  of  its  squalid 
surroundings.  The  Hankow  cities  have  a  very  mixed 
and  sometimes  turbulent  population;  they  contain 
many  haunts  of  vice,  frequented  by  all  ranks  of  society ; 
and  some  of  the  political  and  social,  as  well  as  moral, 
influences  necessarily  surrounding  the  young  Chinese 
students  would  be  nearly  as  bad  as  could  be  imagined. 
Many  of  the  objections  to  Hankow  are  doubtless  in- 
applicable to  the  spacious  and  commodious  European 
Settlement,  and  it  is  there,  perhaps,  that  the  buildings 
would  be  erected.  But  the  Settlement,  after  all,  is  a 
mere  subiurb,  and  if  it  is  proposed  to  place  the  adjoin- 
ing Chinese  cities  "out  of  bounds"  for  the  imiversity 
students,  the  academic  authorities  will  inevitably  be 
compelled  to  establish  a  proctorial  system  on  a  much 
vaster  scale  than  ever  was  dreamed  of  on  the  banks  of 
the  Cam  or  Isis.  Thus  it  seems  certain  that  if  the  inten- 
tion is  to  establish  a  university  that  will  supply  the  sons 
of  the  Chinese  gentry  with  a  good  moral  training  as  well 
as  a  first-rate  liberal  education,  Hankow  is  perhaps  one 
of  the  worst  sites  that  could  be  selected.  Even  its  cli- 
mate leaves  a  great  deal  to  be  desired:  weary  and  white- 
lipped  Englishmen  have  been  heard  to  describe  it  as 
the  worst  in  China,  though  this  is  probably  an  exag- 
geration. There  is  little  to  complain  of  in  winter, 
as  a  rule,  but  the  simimer  months  are  hot,  damp,  and 
unhealthy,  and  that  season  always  witnesses  a  great 
exodus  of  Europeans — ^missionaries,  consular  officials, 
and  merchants — to  the  delightful  sanatoria  that  are 
fortimately  to  be  foimd  in  the  hill-regions  of  several  of 
the  Yangtse  provinces. '    Hankow  possesses  an  advan- 

'  It  may  be  said  that  during  the  summer  months  the  university  would 
be  closed;  but  it  is  quite  anlikely  that  the  long-vacation  system  will  com- 
mend itself  to  young  China,  eager  for  Western  knowledge  and  impatient 


Western  Education  in  China         299 

tage  in  its  central  position  and  accessibility,  but  as  the 
railway  system  is  extended  throughout  China  this  ad- 
vantage will  to  a  large  extent  be  neutralised,  and  in  any 
case  all  points  on  the  Yangtse  as  far  as  Ichang  (a  thou- 
sand miles  fron  the  coast)  can  even  now  be  reached 
almost  as  easily  and  comfortably  as  Hankow.  On  the 
whole,  a  good  case  might  perhaps  be  made  out  for  es- 
tablishing the  imiversity  at  or  near  one  of  the  sanatoria 
to  which  reference  has  just  been  made.  Kulingj'^for 
example,  is  close  to  Kiukiang,  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Yangtse  in  Anhui,  and  in  the  same  range  are  the  beau- 
tiful temple-studded  hills  known  as  Lu  Shan.  Centuries 
ago,  Chinese  students  flocked  to  those  hills  (especially 
to  the  famous  White  Deer  Grotto,  with  its  endowed  col- 
lege) for  purposes  of  quiet  study  and  to  sit  as  disciples 
at  the  feet  of  some  of  the  foremost  philosophers,  poets, 
and  religious  leaders  of  their  day.  The  locality  is  rich 
in  tender  and  romantic  associations  connected  with  the 
venerable  China  that  is  passing  away.  What  more 
fitting  situation  could  be  chosen  for  a  great  modem 
university  than  the  Lu  hills,  where  the  richest  flowers 
of  Western  learning  would  mingle  their  fragrance  with 
that  of  the  fairest  blossoms  of  the  wisdom  of  Old  China?* 


of  delay.  In  some  respects  the  English  system  must  necessarily  be 
modified,  perhaps  to  the  extent  of  establishing  a  "summer-session"  on 
Scottish  lines. 

^  The  latest  information  is  that  the  objections  to  the  Wu-han  cities 
from  the  disciplinary  and  hygienic  point  of  view  have  been  realised,  and 
that  it  is  now  proposed  to  build  the  university  on  the  hills  that  lie  some 
distance  to  the  east.  This  is  very  welcome  news;  but  there  is  still  much 
to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  more  secluded  site  I  have  suggested.  One  not 
unimportant  consideration  is  the  price  of  land.  The  latest  syllabus  of 
the  United  Universities  Scheme  states  that  "it  is,  of  course,  impossible 
to  give  an  exact  estimate  of  the  cost  till  actual  sites  are  being  treated  for, 
but  recent  transactions  in  land  near  the  most  suitable  sites  suggest  the 
figure  £20,000. "  A  site  at  a  greater  distance  from  Hankow  might  be  ob- 
tained for  a  much  smaller  sum  than  this;  indeed,  if  the  sympathy  and 


300         Western  Education  in  China 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  express  a  hope 
that  the  plans  for  the  buildings  will  not  be  hopelessly 
out  of  keeping  with  Chinese  ideas  of  architectural 
beauty.  The  West  is  beginning  at  last  to  take  some 
interest  in  Chinese  pictorial  art ;  the  time  will  come  when 
it  will  learn  to  appreciate  Chinese  ideas  in  architecture 
as  well,  though  there  is  still  a  tendency  to  regard  them 
as  merely  fantastic.  At  all  events,  care  should  be 
taken  to  ensure  that  the  university  buildings  shall  be 
fair  to  look  upon  as  well  as  useful  and  convenient  in 
design.  Most  lovers  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  gladly 
admit  that  the  splendour  and  beauty  of  the  buildings — 
King's  College  chapel,  for  example,  or  the  tower  and 
cloisters  of  Magdalen — are  among  the  most  precious 
and  permanent  educational  influences,  using  the  term 
in  its  widest  sense,  that  their  alma  mater  wields  over 
their  hearts  and  minds. 

But  the  question  of  the  site  and  buildings  of  the  pro- 
posed university  sinks  almost  into  insignificance  beside 
the  much  more  serious  question  of  the  manner  in  which 
it  is  to  supply  a  substitute  for  ''the  old  religious  and 
moral  sanctions"  which,  according  to  the  promoters  of 
the  scheme,  Western  education  in  China  is  at  present 
helping  to  destroy.  As  we  have  seen,  it  is  proposed  to 
place  ''most,  if  not  all,  of  the  hostels"  under  the  control 
of  various  Christian  bodies  which  "would  naturally  pro- 
vide religious  instruction  within  their  walls  on  the  lines 
of  their  own  denominations."  It  is  true  that  the  stu- 
dents "would  not  necessarily  be  Christians,  nor  would 
they  be  unduly  influenced  to  become  such,"  but  apart 
from  the  fact  that  different  missionaries  might  take  very 
divergent  views  of  what  constitutes  "undue  influence, " 
it  stands  to  reason  that  curiosity,  if  nothing  else,  will 

support  of  the  Chinese  authorities  were  successfully  enlisted  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  a  site  could  be  obtained  as  a  free  grant  from  Government. 


Western  Education  in  China         301 

impel  nearly  every  intelligent  Chinese  student  to  make 
some  acquaintance  with  the  religious  teachings  of  the 
missionary  bodies  by  which  his  hostel  happens  to  be 
controlled,  especially  when  he  is  assured  (as  he  doubtless 
will  be)  that  the  "Western  knowledge"  which  it  is  his 
object  to  acquire  is  deeply  rooted  in  the  doctrines  and 
principles  of  the  Christian  religion;  and  once  he  shows 
an  interest  in  Christianity  by  attendance  at  religious 
services,  he  will  no  doubt  be  regarded  as  a  future  con- 
vert, and  will  receive  special  attention  accordingly.  In 
any  case,  there  are  missionary  teachers  who  would  find 
it  practically  impossible  to  refrain  from  making  the  ut- 
most possible  use  of  their  golden  opportunities  to  bring 
wandering  sheep  into  the  Christian  fold. 

For  this  it  would  be  unfair  and  ungrateful  to  reproach 
them.  Moreover,  while  the  university  is  in  its  infancy, 
and  perhaps  for  many  years  to  come,  the  greater  number 
of  the  students  will  have  been  prepared  for  matricula- 
tion at  the  various  mission-schools,  and  when  they  go  to 
the  imiversity  they  will  doubtless  remain  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent  under  the  influence  of  the  different  denomi- 
nations in  whose  schools  they  received  their  preparatory 
education.  But  this  state  of  things  will  not  last  for 
ever.  Secular  schools  will  be  constantly  increasing  in 
numbers  and  efficiency,  and  every  succeeding  batch  of 
candidates  for  matriculation  will  contain  a  smaller  and 
smaller  proportion  of  mission-scholars.  Thus  it  will  be 
necessary,  before  long,  to  devise  a  method  of  providing 
for  the  ever-growing  number  of  students  who,  while 
fully  qualified  to  pass  the  en  trance- tests,  and  perhaps 
highly  appreciative  of  the  higher  aspects  of  Western 
civilisation,  may  yet  be  strongly  averse  from  associating 
themselves  in  any  way  with  formulated  Christianity. 

By  no  means  do  I  wish  to  confuse  the  Christianity 
that  may  be  taught  in  the  great  mission-colleges,  such 


302         Western  Education  in  China 

as  those  already  established  at  Hankow,  with  the  absurd, 
contemptible,  and  demoralising  medley  of  religious 
notions  that  form  the  stock-in-trade  of  missionaries  of 
the  class  dealt  with  in  the  foregoing  chapters.  On  the 
contrary,  although  I  am  personally  attracted  by  no  ex- 
isting system  of  doctrinal  Christianity  and  have  no 
desire  to  see  the  Chinese  people  adopt  any  of  the  Christ- 
ian creeds  or  confessions  of  faith,  I  shall  welcome  the 
establishment  of  a  great  Christian  university,  not  only 
as  a  valuable  civilising  agency,  but  also  as  a  force  that 
may  go  far  to  neutralise  the  terrible  injury  done  to  West- 
em  prestige,  to  Chinese  self-respect,  to  the  cause  of  civil- 
isation and  international  amity  and  (as  I  believe)  to  the 
cause  of  true  religion,  by  the  misdirected  efforts  of  the 
half -educated  and  fanatical  missionaries  of  the  type 
described  in  this  Appeal.  It  is  true  that  these  persons 
devote  themselves  chiefly  to  preaching  the  gospel, 
holding  prayer-meetings,  and  distributing  tracts  and 
*' Bible-portions,**  and  it  might  therefore  appear  that 
their  influence  in  matters  affecting  education  can  in  any 
case  be  only  slight;  but  their  child-like  enthusiasm, 
their  nimierical  preponderance,  their'  strong  flnancial 
backing,  and  the  strenuous  zeal  with  which  they  pene- 
trate every  nook  and  comer  of  the  empire,  have  been 
dangerously  successful  in  enabling  them  to  pose  before 
the  Chinese  masses  as  the  representatives  of  the  best 
features  of  Western  civilisation.  Even  the  official 
classes  have  been  pitiably  deceived;  and  in  these  facts 
we  may  find  a  partial  explanation  of  the  strange  mixture 
of  sympathy  and  loathing,  admiration  and  contempt, 
with  which  the  puzzled  China  of  to-day  regards  the 
culture  and  religion  of  the  West. 

It  would  be  a  thousand  pities  if,  through  some  mis- 
imderstanding  of  the  true  state  of  affairs,  the  promoters 
and  supporters  of  the  imiversity  scheme  were  to  aUow 


Western  Education  in  China  303 

the  academic  hostels  to  pass  even  partially  under  the 
control  or  influence  of  missionaries  of  the  type  it  has 
been  my  task  to  describe  in  these  pages.  There  is  but 
too  little  room  for  doubt  that  before  long  they  would 
bring  ridicule  and  contempt  on  the  university  and  check 
for  an  indefinite  period  that  "fusion  of  the  best  in  East- 
em  and  Western  thought"  and  that  "better  mutual 
understanding  between  China  and  the  West"  which  it 
is  the  most  laudable  aim  of  the  promoters  of  the  United 
Universities  Scheme  to  bring  about. 

It  is,  unfortunately,  only  too  obvious  that  the  major- 
ity of  people  in  Eiurope  and  America  who  generously 
subscribe  to  foreign  missions  are  sadly  ignorant  of  the 
differences  in  doctrine  and  method  and  in  personal 
qualifications  that  divide  missionaries  in  China,  and  it 
is  certain  that  many  of  them  would  be  shocked  to  hear 
of  the  kind  of  Christianity  that  is  in  some  quarters 
supposed  to  be  good  enough  for  the  "heathen  Chinee." 
A  few  months  ago  a  well-known  English  newspaper  in 
Shanghai  published  an  article  in  which  the  belief  was 
expressed  that  the  narrow  religious  doctrines  once  held 
and  taught  by  Protestant  missionaries  in  China  were 
undergoing  a  welcome  modification,  especially  in  respect 
of  the  modem  theory  of  a  "progressive  development" 
of  Christian  truth  and  a  more  generous  recognition  of 
the  value  of  the  non-Christian  religions  formerly  held 
to  be  of  Satanic  origin.'  The  article  in  question  pro- 
duced an  indignant  protest  from  a  missionary  resident 
in  the  remote  province  of  Kansu,  who,  after  repudiating 
on  behalf  of  himself  and  "by  far  the  larger  part  of  the 

^  Biogtry,  ignorance,  and  intolerance  were  not  a  monopoly  of  the  mis- 
sionaries who  came  to  China.  Much]_the  same  state  of  things  existed 
in  India.  A  writer  in  The  East  and  the  West  (Oct.,  1909,  p.  401)  remarks 
that  "the  early  missionaries  adopted  a  policy  of  frontal  attack  on  Hindu- 
ism. They  taught  that  everything  outside  of  Christianity  was  of  the 
Devil." 


304         Western  Education  in  China 

missionaries  of  China  '*  any  sympathy  with  the  theory  of 
*' progressive  development,"  made  an  appreciative 
reference  to  a  brother  missionary  who  had  declared  his 
thankfulness  that  the  form  of  theology  to  which  he  gave 
his  adherence  was  ''just  the  up-grade  theology  of  the 
late  Mr.  Spurgeon."^  I  dare  not  pretend  to  a  clear 
apprehension  of  the  precise  signification  of  an  ''up- 
grade theology,"  but,  judging  from  the  tenor  of  some 
of  Mr.  Spurgeon*s  published  discourses,  I  am  satisfied 
that  it  is  a  theology  which  will  never  be  accepted  by  the 
educated  classes  of  the  people  of  China,  and  one  which 
the  university  authorities  will  not,  if  they  are  wise, 
recommend  to  their  more  intelligent  pupils. 

It  is  somewhat  unfortimate  that,  though  some  clear- 
sighted missionaries  to-day  are  willing  to  admit  that 
many  of  their  predecessors  held  and  taught  religious 
views  that  displayed  an  almost  stupefying  degree  of 
narrowness  and  bigotry,  they  do  not  always  realise  that 
some  of  their  own  religious  teachings  and  scriptural 
interpretations  may  be  regarded  as  equally  erroneous 
or  imperfect  by  their  successors.  They  may  reply  that 
they  can,  after  all,  teach  only  in  accordance  with  the 
light  that  is  in  them — that  they  can  promulgate  only 
the  Christianity  of  to-day,  not  the  hypothetical  Christi- 
anity of  a  hundred  years  hence.  This  is  true  enough, 
but  in  view  of  the  extraordinarily  rapid  changes  that 
Christian  interpretation  has  imdergone  in  recent  years, 
and  the  possibility — to  say  the  least — of  similar  changes 
in  the  future,  would  it  not  be  wise  and  proper  for  the 
university  authorities  to  use  extreme  caution  in  im- 
pressing the  minds  of  Chinese  students  with  doctrines 
and  dogmas  which  may  subsequently  require  to  be 
discarded  or  explained  away?^    Those  of  us  who  stand 

'  See  North  China  Daily  News  of  Oct.  23,  1909. 
*  See  above,  pp.  33-39. 


Western  Education  in  China         305 

outside  all  Christian  denominations,  but  are  interested 
in  Christianity  as  one  of  the  embodiments  of  the  un- 
dying religious  instincts  of  mankind,  are  sometimes 
shocked  at  what  appear  to  us  the  insincere  and  dis- 
ingenuous attempts  of  some  theologians  to  reconcile 
certain  biblical  statements  or  Christian  dogmas  with 
scientific  facts  which  are  clearly  opposed  to  such  dogmas 
or  statements.  It  is  said  that  a  certain  American  divine 
who  was  keenly  desirous  of  reconciling  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Fall  with  the  indubitable  scientific  fact 
that  during  his  earthly  sojourn  man  has  not  fallen  but 
risen,  made  the  brilliant  suggestion  that  the  process  in 
question  was  perhaps  a  fall  upward.'^  An  ascending 
descent  may  mean  something  in  a  system  of  mysticism 
that  aims  at  the  reconciliation  of  contradictories,  but  to 
the  ordinary  lay  mind  the  notion  is  likely  to  be  a  be- 
wildering one,  even  if  some  connection  be  successfully 
established  between  an  " upward  fall  "and  an  "up-grade 
theology." 

If  the  imiversity  undertakes,  whether  by  means  of 
official  lectures  or  by  imofficial  instruction  in  the  hostels, 
to  convey  to  the  educated  classes  of  China  some  of  the 
opinions  and  beliefs  held  by  Western  theologians  on  the 
momentous  questions  with  which  religion  concerns  it- 
self, it  will  belie  its  name  as  a  university  if  it  allows  its 
students  to  suppose  that  these  opinions  and  beliefs  are 
accepted  by  all  cultivated  Western  minds  as  incontro- 

^  See  Philip  Vivian's  The  Churches  and  Modern  Thought  (2nd  ed.), 
p.  215.  Cf.  the  following  incontrovertible  statement  by  the  gifted 
author  of  The  Religion  of  All  Good  Men:  "Great  truths,  of  which  Christ 
never  dreamed,  are  put  forward  as  truths  of  the  gospel.  Teaching  dia- 
metrically opposed  to,  is  now  'reconciled'  with,  that  of  Christ.  Words 
of  Christ,  which  were  false  or  mistaken,  are  being  left  on  one  side  or 
explained  away.  We  are  being  told  that  'Christianity  is  progressive' 
(which  means  that  the  mind  of  man  is  progressive  and  has  grown  out  of 
a  good  deal  that  is  in  Christianity),  and  that,  though  'Christ  abideth 
for  ever,'  he  is  not '  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  all  time.  * " 


3o6         Western  Education  in  China 

vertible  truths.  Educated  China  will  in  course  of  time 
undoubtedly  find  out  for  itself  these  two  undeniable 
facts:  that  "there  is  scarcely  a  dogma  of  Christianity 
which  is  not  hotly  combated  in  Europe  by  Christian 
as  well  as  by  agnostic  writers,"^  and  that  "there  exists 
to-day  an  enormous  and  ever-increasing  number  of 
serious  and  intelligent  persons  whom  Christianity, 
both  historically  and  ethically,  fails  to  satisfy/*^  It 
will  be  impossible  for  the  university  to  disclaim,  in  its 
corporate  capacity,  all  responsibility  for  the  Christian 
doctrines  that  may  be  taught  in  its  various  hostels  or 
colleges  as  established  truths ;  and  it  will  gain  nothing, 
in  the  long  nm,  by  concealing  inconvenient  facts  under 
a  veil  which  sooner  or  later  will  be  ruthlessly  torn  aside 
by  the  Chinese  themselves. 

But  it  is  the  express  object  of  the  promoters  of  the 
imiversity  scheme  to  check  the  advance  of  materialism 
in  China  by  "letting  in  the  flood- tide  of  spiritual  forces 
to  counteract  it."^  How  can  this  be  accomplished,  it 
may  be  asked,  except  through  the  mediimi  of  Christian- 
ity, and  how  can  Christianity  be  taught  if  its  dogmatic 
framework  be  ignored?  This  is  surely  a  late  hour  at 
which  to  advance  the  theory  that  a  lofty  code  of  moral- 
ity, and  noble  ideals  in' politics  and  social  life,  cannot 
exist  apart  from  the  Christian  faith,  and  cannot  be 
taught  except  through  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
At  the  International  Congress  on  Moral  Education  held 
at  the  University  of  London  in  September,  1908,  a 
French  deputy,  "in  a  short,  courageous  paper,  made  it 
clear  that  the  leading  French  educationists  had  long 
ceased  to  regard  religion  as  any  part  of  the  content  of  moral 
education,  or  as  having  any  vital  relation  to  it.     Religion 

^  Alston's  White  Man's  Work  in  Asia  and  Africa,  p.  57. 

»  The  Religion  of  All  Good  Men,  by  H.  W.  Garrod,  p.  159. 

3  These  are  the  words  of  the  veteran  missionary,  Dr.  Timothy  Richard. 


Western  Education  in  China  307 

is  to  receive  a  formal  acknowledgment.  Children  must 
be  taught  *  the  respect  due  to  the  idea  of  religion  and  the 
tolerance  due  to  all  its  forms  without  exception.  But 
for  the  rest  they  are  to  be  taught  that  the  chief  mode  of 
honouring  God  consists  in  each  doing  his  duty  accord- 
ing to  his  conscience  and  his  reason.'"'  Even  if  we 
assimie  that  France  is  given  over  to  the  Powers  of  Dark- 
ness, dare  we  assert  that  there  was  no  morality  in  the 
Roman  Republic,  or  in  the  pagan  Germania  described 
for  us  by  Tacitus,  or  that  Western  civilisation  owes 
nothing  to  Hellenism  or  to  the  sturdy  Goth?  Is  there 
no  sound  morality  to-day  outside  the  Christian  fold: 
in  Japan,  for  example — or  even  in  China  itself?  It  will 
be  urged,  perhaps,  that,  however  these  things  may  be, 
Christianity  alone  is  capable  of  stemming  the  flood  of 
materialism — a  task  too  arduous  for  the  languid  forces 
of  Shinto,  Buddhism,  or  Confucianism.  But,  strangely 
enough,  we  learn  from  one  who  is  himself  an  apostle  of 
Western  religious  culture  in  China  that  it  is  precisely 
in  the  Christian  West  that  the  tide  of  materialism  is 
running  strongest.  "This  falling  of  the  religious  tide, " 
says  Dr.  Timothy  Richard,  "is  so  powerful  as  to  imperil 
whole  nations,  even  the  most  advanced  who  trust  more 
in  Dreadnoughts  than  in  righteous  reciprocity.  This  is 
a  return  to  savagery.  It  has  its  chief  leaders  in  the 
West  to-day."  Thus,  if  China  and  Japan  are  falling 
under  the  spell  of  materialism,  it  is  no  other  than  the 
Christian  West  itself  that  must  accept  the  responsibility. 
It  is  true  that  this  proves  nothing  against  Christianity ; 
far  more  important  is  it  to  note  that  even  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  forces  that  oppose  materialism  in  the  West  are 
by  no  means  exclusively  ranged  imder  the  Christian 
banner.      "It  cannot  be  doubted,"  writes  a  Congrega- 

^  See  paper  by  Prof.  J.  H.  Mulrhead  In  The  Hihhert  Journal,  Jan.,  1909, 
p.  348.     (The  italics  are  mine.) 


3o8  Western  Education  in  China 

tional  minister,  "that  the  Churches  have  lost  their  hold 
upon  two  classes  of  every  community — the  cultured 
classes  and  the  industrial  classes. "  "I  am  disposed  to 
think,*'  said  the  late  Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  of  Glasgow, 
*'  that  a  great  and  steadily-increasing  portion  of  the  mor- 
al worth  of  society  lies  outside  the  organised  Churches, 
not  by  godlessness,  but  rather  by  exceptional  moral 
earnestness.*'  "The  leadership  of  science  and  art  and 
literature  is  already  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  have  broken  with  organised  Christianity. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  guides  and  pioneers  in 
social  and  political  reform. "  ^  Devout  Christians  have 
watched  in  vain  for  any  sign  that  the  decay  of  faith  in 
the  Christian  creeds  is  being  accompanied  by  any  gen- 
eral collapse  of  morality.  They  are  obliged  to  admit, 
if  they  are  honest,  that  large  numbers  of  "infidels"  are 
not  only  chivalrous,  honourable,  and  high-principled, 
but  are  often  men  of  deep  religious  instinct ;  and  that  an 
abandonment  of  Christianity  does  not  necessarily  in- 
dicate the  acceptance  of  what  is  usually  stigmatised 
(rather  vaguely)  as  Materialism.  Very  slowly  and 
reluctantly  the  educated  West  is  coming  to  realise  that 
a  belief  in  a  formulated  creed  is  not  an  essential  founda- 
tion for  a  moral  and  upright  life,  and  also  that  religion 
is  not  necessarily  synonymous  with  the  Christian  faith. 
Perhaps  some  day,  when  the  proposed  Chinese  univer- 
sity is  in  good  working  order,  a  few  of  the  more  intelli- 
gent students  may  begin  to  show  curiosity  with  regard 
to  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  those  great 
English  universities  to  which  their  own  alma  mater 
owed  its  origin.  And  what  will  they  find?  "A  genera- 
tion is  growing  up,"  writes  the  fellov/  and  tutor  of  an 
Oxford  college,  "which  is  calling  ethical  Christianity 

^  The  Hihhert  Journal,  July,  1906,  p.  846.     Article  by  the  Rev.  K. 
C.  Anderson.  D.D. 


Western  Education  in  China  309 

into  question,  just  as  the  two  preceding  generations 
called  in  question  historical  Christianity.  Standing 
myself  nearer  to  this  generation  than  to  any  other,  and 
being,  from  the  nature  of  my  profession,  in  contact  on 
all  hands  with  young  men  of  many  types  belonging  to 
the  educated  classes,  I  say,  with  some  confidence, 
that  never,  I  believe,  was  the  hold  of  religion  upon  the 
minds  of  the  youth  of  this  country  stronger,  nor  the 
hold  of  Christianity  weaker.  And,  with  still  greater 
confidence,  I  would  affirm  that  the  difficulty  which 
young  men  to-day  have  in  accepting  Christianity  is  not 
intellectual,  but  moral.     I  speak  that  which  I  know."^ 


'  H.  W.  Garrod's  The  Religion  of  All  Good  Men,  pp.  vii.-viii.  (London, 
1906).  In  the  statement  of  aims  drawn  up  by  the  promoters  of  the 
United  Universities  Scheme  it  is  stated  that  "there  is  at  present  in  the 
British  universities  a  quite  unprecedented  enthusiasm  for  missionary  en- 
terprise, which  has  spread  to  circles  previously  unaffected  by  such  inter- 
ests." Cf.  also  a  sermon  preached  at  St.  Paul's  by  the  Bishop  of  Stepney 
on  Feb.  ii,  1910,  and  reported  in  The  Times  of  Feb.  12.  This  view 
seems  curiously  different  from  that  of  Mr.  Garrod.  Perhaps  Mr.  Garrod 
himself  (in  a  review  of  Wells's  First  and  Last  Things  in  The  Hibbert  Jour- 
nal, April,  1909,  pp.  682-3)  gives  us  a  clue  to  the  true  state  of  affairs.  The 
young  men  of  Oxford,  he  says — or  a  great  and  representative  number  of 
them — "do  not  believe  in  the  Resurrection,  but  they  are  interested  in 
social  reform.  Accordingly,  they  rush  into  the  Christian  Social  Union  or 
the  priesthood  without  taking  time  to  be  fair  with  their  own  souls,  and 
without  ever  once  thinking  sincerely  and  ultimately  upon  subjects  the 
most  important.  And,  being  clever  and  interesting  and  enthusiastic, 
they  mislead  others. "  Certainly,  if  these  young  men  rush  into  the  priest- 
hood without  believing  in  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
they  have  only  themselves  to  blame  if  they  become  unhappy  and  dis- 
illusionised thereafter.  It  is  not  as  though  they  were  seminary-bred, 
like  the  young  priests  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  did  not  begin  to  use 
their  reasoning  faculties  until  it  was  too  late.  The  fact  is  that  the  new 
activity  of  the  Church  in  social  matters  rather  confuses  the  issue  nowa- 
days. As  regards  the  interest  taken  at  present  by  the  British  universi- 
ties in  missionary  enterprise,  this  is  certainly  due  in  part  to  a  keen  desire 
to  bring  Western  civilisation  and  its  highest  ideals  to  the  East ;  and  this 
again  is  largely  owing  to  a  vague  foreboding  that  if  something  of  the 
kind  be  not  done  energetically  and  promptly  Western  civilisation  will 


310  Western  Education  in  China 

Are  you  going  to  let  your  Chinese  students  find  out 
these  things  for  themselves,  after  you  have  done 
your  best  to  keep  them  in  ignorance  of  the  matter, 
or  will  you  be  honest  and  tell  them  the  truth  at 
once? 

Surely  there  are  ways  in  which  the  young  Chinese 
student  may  be  initiated  into  the  highest  ethical  ideals 
of  Western  civilisation  without  encumbering  him  with 
creeds  and  dogmas  which  you  yourselves  are  rapidly 
discarding,  I  do  not  refer  merely  to  the  direct  incul- 
cation of  a  soimd  morality,  though  that  is  important.  A 
great  deal  of  the  "materialism "  to  which  modern  science 
is  supposed  to  lead  may  be  kept  at  a  safe  distance  by 
educating  the  student's  aesthetic  and  artistic  instincts. 
''Teach  what  is  wise — that  is  morality;  teach  what  is 
wise  and  beautiful — that  is  religion."'  If  the  student 
learns  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of  knowledge  and  wis- 
dom as  well  as  their  usefulness,  there  need  be  little  fear 
that  his  spiritual  or  emotional  faculties  will  become 
atrophied,  even  though  he  be  not  taught  to  believe  in 
sacraments  and  vicarious  punishments  and  up-grade 
theologies.  It  may  be  that  if  the  truth  towards  which 
all  religions,  all  philosophies,  all  the  sciences  are  groping 
is  ever  to  be  made  manifest  to  mankind,  the  pagan  in 
the  East  will  behold  it  just  as  soon  and  just  as  clearly 
as  the  Christian  in  the  West,  and  that  it  will  become 
the  possession  of  neither  the  one  not  the  other  so  long 
as  the  religious  and  emotional  instincts  are  cabined 
and  confined  within  the  grim  walls  of  theological 
formulas. 


be  in  danger  of  overthrow  by  a  regenerated  and  reorganised  Oriental 
civilisation  that  will  draw  its  inspiration  to  a  good  extent  from  ideals 
different  from,  and  perhaps  antagonistic  to,  those  of  the  West.  See 
above,  pp.  12  seq.,  293  seq. 

*  Quoted  in  Lord  Avebury's  Peaca  and  Happiness,  p.  305. 


Western  Education  in  China         311 

"When  whelmed  are  altar,  priest,  and  creed; 
When  all  the  faiths  have  passed; 
Perhaps,  from  darkening  incense  freed, 
God  may  emerge  at  last."^ 

There  is  one  other  point  that  should  be  kept  well  in 
view  by  those  who  are  to  guide  the  fortunes  of  a  Western 
university  on  Chinese  soil.  Do  not  assume  too  hastily 
that  the  teaching  is  all  to  be  on  yotir  side  and  the  learn- 
ing to  be  all  on  the  side  of  the  Chinese.  Were  it  not 
fitting  that  those  in  charge  of  China's  Oxford  should 
follow  the  practice  of  that  typical "  Clerke  of  Oxenforde  '* 
who  still  lives  for  us  in  the  pages  of  your  English 
Chaucer? 

"Souninge  in  moral  vertu  was  his  speche 

And  gladly  wolde  he  Urn  and  gladly  teche." 

Be  exceedingly  tender  in  yoiu:  treatment  of  the  old 
philosophers  of  China — Confucius  and  the  rest — not 
only  when  you  are  instilling  Western  wisdom  into  minds 
saturated  with  Confucian  lore,  but  even  more  so  when 
you  see — as  you  will  see — a  tendency  among  many  of 
your  most  brilliant  Chinese  pupils  to  heap  contempt  on 
the  sages  of  their  country.  A  China  that  ceases  to 
respect  her  own  past  will  deserve  the  scorn,  not  the 
admiration,  of  her  Western  teachers.  At  one  time,  as 
we  have  seen,  all  non-Christian  faiths  were  regarded  by 
Christians  as  the  work  of  the  Devil.  The  wisest  among 
them  now  know — and  the  wisest  among  Chinese  know 
too — that  perfection  and  absolute  truth  are  to  be  found 
neither  in  the  systems  of  the  West  nor  in  those  of  the 
East.  ''Our  wisdom  is  to  recognise  clearly,"  says  a 
singularly  fair-minded  English  clergyman,  "the  pro- 
visional nature  of  our  present  ethical  and  spiritual 

'  William  Watson's  New  Poems  (London,  1909). 


312         Western  Education  in  China 

knowledge.  All  our  present  religions  are  but  symbols. 
All  our  present  moralities  are  but  as  narrow  and  fragile 
stairs  sloping  through  unmeasured  regions  of  darkness 
up  to  far-off  unknown  heights  of  genuine  perfection.'* 
If  you  of  the  West  have  much  to  teach  us  of  the  East, 
there  is  also  a  good  deal  that  you  yourselves,  if  you  will, 
may  learn  f ron  China ;  while  beyond  the  farthest  shores 
of  all  the  wisdom  of  Europe  and  Asia  there  stretch  the 
waters  of  an  unexplored  ocean  in  which  fairy  islands 
of  beauty  and  wonder  still  await  discovery  by  the 
explorers  of  both  East  and  West. 


INDEX 


Abroad  for  the  Bible  Society,  by 
Ritson,  quoted,  n.  194 

Addis,  W.  E.,  quoted,  229 

Africa,  Spread  of  Mohammed- 
anism, in  17 

Agnostic's  Apology,  An,  by  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen,  cited,  n.  167, 
n.  171 

"Agony,"  a  technical  term  in 
Revivalism,  41,  107 

Alcohol,  Use  of,  prohibited  by 
Christian   missionaries,   213-14 

Alice  in   Wonderland,  quoted,  n. 

234 
Alston,  Leonard,    quoted,  275,  n. 

Alternating  personalities,  148 
America,     Criticism     of,     by     a 

Chinese  student,  66,  69 
American    Journal    of   Sociology, 

The,  quoted,  66,  68 
American    Journal    of    Theology, 

The,  quoted,  7,  33,  n.  58,  61,  n. 

117,  n.  153,  159-160,  n.  177,  n. 

188,  n.  260 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  Burton's, 

quoted,  n.   157,  n.   176,   178,  n. 

179,  241 
Anderson,  Rev.  K.  C,  quoted,  308 
Anglican  Church,  Ambiguities  of 

the,  30,  280-2 
Anti-clericalism   in    Europe,    8-9 
Anti-Nunquam,  cited,  25 
Antipathy     between     East     and 

West,  Reasons  of,  24 
Architecture,   Eastern  and  Wes- 
tern, 253,  254,  299,  300 
Armaments    of  European  States, 

279 
Arnold,  R.  B.,  quoted,  n.  183-4 
Artists  of  China,  292-3,  299 
Ascension,  Dogma  of  the,  28,  30, 

n.  57,  n.  167,  271,  281 
Asia,  Awakening  of,  13,  14,  290 

seq. 


Asia  and  Europe,  quoted,  n.  10 
Athanasian  Creed,  28,  n.  160-61 
Augustine,  St.,  n.  99,   131 
Australian  in  China,  An,  quoted, 

159-60 
Australians   and   Americans,    Al- 
leged hatred  of,  for  Orientals,  24 
Avebury,  Lord,  quoted,  n.  242,  310 
Awakening  of  Asia,  13,  290 

Babylonia,  Exorcism  of  devils  in, 

152 
Baldwin    Lectures     (1909),     The, 

n.  7 
Bailer,  F.  W.,  cited,^  n.  100 
Barbarities  in  Christendom,  Ex- 
amples of,  275-8 
Barnett,  Rev.  S.  A.,  quoted,  32 
Beauty,  Training  of  the  sense  of, 

an  element  in  education,  299- 

301,  310 
Bells,    Christian,    and    Buddhist 

gongs,  256-8 
Beth,  Prof.,  n.  39 
Bible,    Proposed   present   to    the 

Emperor  of  China  of  a,  287 
Biblical  infallibility,  146,  n.  151- 

2,  282,  283  seq.,  and  see  Biblio- 

latry 
Bibliolatry,  4,  58,  147,  152,  265, 

271,  282  seq. 
Birmingham,    Bishop  of,     quoted, 

284 
Bland,  Hubert,  quoted,  n.  263 
"Blood  of  Jesus,"  260-62 
Blyth,  P.  J.,  quoted,  n.  128 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  The,  by 

Canon  Newbolt,  quoted,  160,  n. 

161 
Book  of  the  Dead,  The  Egyptian, 

n.  242 
Boone  College,  Wuchang,  n.  296 
Bray,   Billy,    117,    118 
Brierley's  Religion  and  Experience, 

quoted,  n.    188 


313 


314 


Index 


British  Columbia,  Indians  of,  n. 

242 
Broomhall,  Marshall,  n.  15 
Browning,  quoted,  179 
Bruce,  Prof.  A.  B.,  quoted,  308 
Buddhism,  73-5    81-4,  166,  175, 

240,  243,  248,  256-8,  288,  289 
Buddhist  charms,  240,  243 
Buddhist  gongs,  256-8 
Buddhist  hells,   166 
Buddhist  monks.  Morals  of,  81-5 
Buddhist  nomenclature,  248 
Buddhists  in  China,  Tolerance  of, 

73-4.  289 
Burma,    Buddhism  m,   257-8 
Burton,  Rev.  J.  W.,  quoted,  35 
Burton,   Robert,  quoted,   157,  n. 

176,  178,  179 

Cambridge    University,    Christi- 
anity at,  4 
Campbell,  Rev.  R.  J.,  8,  n.  142, 

270 
Cana  of  Galilee,  Feast  at,  212 
Canada,  Irreligious  practices  in, 

103 
Canton,  Catholic  Cathedral  in,  254 
Carpentaria,  Bishop  of,  25 
Carpenter,  Dr.  Estlin,  quoted,  n. 

177 
Case,  S.  J.,  quoted,  n.  177 
Cast-off   theology  of  Europe  not 

wanted  by  China,  38 
Catholic  doctrine  of  a  personal 

devil,  136,  15 1-2,  153-4 
Catholic  missionaries  in  Hunan, 

n.  206 
Cathohc  theology,  6,  n.  149,  151-2, 

153-5,  n.  167,  280,  282,  283 
Catholic  word-magic,  241-6,  247 
Catholicism,  Decay  of  Roman,  8 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  Rela- 
tions between,  25,  100,  156-7 
Catholics  in  China,   Number  of, 

n.  15-n.  16 
Cecil,  Lord  Hugh,  quoted,  293 
Cecil,  Lord  Wilham,  n.  293,  and 

see  United  Universities  Scheme 
Changsha,  Missionaries  at,  60,  65, 

206-207,  n.  208,  209-10 
Channing,  Dr.,  quoted,  277  n. 
Chaucer,    quoted,    311 
Children,     Chinese,     Revivalism 

practised  on,  115,  121-129,  250 
China  and  Religion,  by  Prof.  E.  H. 

Parker,   quoted,   71-2 
China  Emergency  Scheme,  294-5 


China  from  Within,  by  Arthur 
Davenport,  cited,   155 

China  Inland  Mission,  15,  n.  44, 
60,  159,  201,  203,  206 

China,  Prospects  of  a  reorganised 
and  rejuvenated,  290  seq. 

China's  Millions  (missionary  peri- 
odical), 41,  n.  42,  n.  44,  n.  45, 
and  passim 

Chinese  character.  The,  as  inter- 
preted   by    missionaries,    62-9 

Chinese  Empire,  The,  by  Marshall 
Broomhall,  n.  16 

Chinese  Recorder,  The  (missionary 
periodical),  n.  12,  n.  44,  n.  47, 
n.  49,  n.  65,  n.  70,  n.  78,  n.  102, 
n.  115,  n.  137,  n.  156,  n.  163, 
225,  n.  248,  n.  259,  n.  262 

Christian  Apologetic,  Insincerity 
and  ambiguity  of,  30-34,  and 
see  Insincerity  of  theologians 

Christian  doctrine.  Changes  in, 
29  seq.,  35  seq.,  and  see  Reinter- 
pretation  and  reconstruction  of 
Christian  doctrine 

Christian  Literature  Society,  The, 
n.  15 

Christian  Science,  134-5,  ^77 y  ii* 
283 

Christian  Year,  Keble's,  quoted, 
n.  118 

Christianity  and  Tradition,  by  P. 
J.  Blyth,  quoted,  n.  128 

Christianity,  What  is  it?  280  seq., 
and  see  Reinterpretation  and 
reconstruction  of  Christian  doc- 
trine 

Christians  in  China,  Statistics 
concerning,  n.  15,  n.  16 

Christology,  A  Chinese,  for  China, 
272 

Church-bells,  256-8 

Church  of  England,  Ambiguity  of 
doctrinal  statements  of  the,  30, 
280-82,  and  see  Insincerity  of 
theologians 

Church  Missionary  Society,  The, 
61 

Churches  and  Modern  Thought, 
The,  quoted,  n.  129,  n.  131,  n. 
196-7,  n.  216,  n.  395 

Churchill,  Winston  S.,  quoted,  276 

Clan-fights  in  China,  50-51 

Coe,  Prof.,  quoted,  116,  n.  117,  n. 
153,  188,  189 

Colenso,  Bishop,  quoted,  38 

Concubinage  in  China,  214-17 


Index 


315 


Confessions  of  crime  and  immor- 
ality at  Chinese  revivals,  103 
seq. 

Confucian-Jesus  Society,  The, 
51-2 

Confucianism,    275    seq.,    287-8, 

311 

Congo  Atrocities,  The,  275 

Contemporary  Review,  The,  n.  6, 
n.  32,  n.  161,  n.  177-8 

Converts,  Morals  of  Chinese,  49 
seq.,  104  seq. 

Conybeare,  Dr.  F.  C,  n.  4,  25,  38, 
n.  57,  231,  n.  232 

Corybantic  missionary- type,  42 

Courtenay,  Bishop,  on  the  Resur- 
rection, n.  57 

Criminals,  Prayers  of,  180  seq. 

Daily  News,  quoted,  210 

Damnation  of  unbelievers,  14,  25, 
133.  158  seq.,  266-7,  271,  and 
see  Hell  and  Satan 

Darwinism,  Knowledge  of,  in 
China,  38 

Day  of  Judgment,  The,  140 

Decay  of  the  Church  oj  Rome,  The, 
8,  n.  IS 

Decorous  and  corybantic  mis- 
sionary-types,   42 

Deissman,  7 

Demonology,  Christian,  145  seq. 
and  see  Devil  and  Devil-pos- 
session 

Devil,  The,  n.  14,  25,  41,  n.  41, 
90.  93.  94.  n.  131,  136  seq.,  140- 
44.  n.  301 

Devil-possession,  147-57, 184, 250, 
271 

Dewey  and  Tufts'  Ethics,  quoted, 
278 

Die  Moderne  und  die  Prinzipien 
der  Theologie,  n.  39 

Dogmatic  Christianity,  Collapse 
of,  5.  6,  7 

Donaldson,  Principal,  on  the 
position  of  women,  n.  216 

Doolittle,  Rev.  Justus,  n.  63,  n. 
147,  n.  287 

Drummond,  Rev.  James,  on  de- 
vil-possession, 151 

Duty  of  Free  States,  Channing's, 
quoted,  277 

Dyer,  H.  S.,  cited,  n.  153 

East  and  the  West,  The  (missionary 


quarterly),  n.  25,  n.  62,  n.  255, 
n,  269,  n.  270,  n.  275,  n.  303 

Ecclesia  Discens,  by  the  Rev.  H. 
F.  Peile,  quoted,  128,  n.  129 

Eddy,  Mrs.,  177,  n.  283 

Edkins,  Dr.,  quoted,  73,  74,  289 

Education  in  China,  44-5,  165, 
290-312 

Educational  and  medical  mis- 
sionaries. Excellent  work  done 
by,   165-6,  294 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  cited,   168 

Emery  Barnes,  Prof.  W.,  quoted, 
n.  161 

Emmanuel,  Use  of  the  word,  as  a 
charm,  239,  240,  251 

Emotional  appeal  of  Christianity, 
26 

Emotional  religion,  26-27,  ii4"" 
29,  and  see  Revivalism 

Essays   and   Reviews,    cited,    234 

Ethics,  Chinese,  64,  213  seq.,  273 
seq. 

Ethics  of  Christianity  called  in 
question,   308-9 

Ethics,  by  Dewey  and  Tufts, 
quoted,  278 

European  traders  in  China,  Al- 
leged immorality  of,  65-6 

Evangelical  side  of  missionary 
work,  n.  44,  45 

Evil,  Problem  of,  130  seq.,  266-7 

Evolution  of  Religion,  The,  by  Dr. 
Farnell,  quoted,  n.  151,  242-3 

Exeter  Hall,  n.  36     ^ 

Exorcism  of  devils  in  twentieth 
century,  152-3,  155-7 

Expectoration,  Disagreeable  Chi- 
nese practice  of,  n.  222 

Faith,  175  seq. 

Faith  and  Facts,  quoted,  200-201 

FaU,  An  American  interpretation 

of  the  doctrine  of  the,  305 
Farnell,  Dr.,  quoted,  n.  151,  242-3 
Farrer,  quoted,  168 
Fictions     on     Realites,      by     M. 

Thomas,   quoted,  n.   136 
Foochow,  Christian  "revival"  in, 

lOI 

Foreign  Missions,  Testimony  of 
m-issionary  as  to  ill-success  of, 

35.  n.  36 
Fortnightly  Review,    The,  quoted, 

n.  277 
France,  Decay  of  Christianity  in, 

8-9 


3i6 


Index 


France,  Educational  principles  in, 

306 
Frazer,  Dr.  J.  G.,  cited,  242 
Froude,  quoted,  82,  83 
Furniss,    Rev.    J.,    on    hell-fire, 

167-8 

Gadarene  swine,  Story  of  the, 

34.  148 
Garrod,  H.  W.,  quoted,  n.  4,  260, 

261,  n.  306,  n.  309-10 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  Theology  of, 

148 
Goforth,  Rev.  Mr.,  n.  41, 100,  103, 

105,  n.  105,  123,  124,  147 
Golden  Bough,  The,  cited,  n.  242 
Goodwin     Smith,     Dr.      Henry, 

quoted,  n,  177 
Gorham,  C.  T.,  cited,  n.  57 
Gospel    of    the    Resurrection,    by 

Bishop    Westcott,     quoted,    n. 

196-7 
Greaves,  Rev.  E.,  quoted,  269,  270 
Gregory  the  Great  on  the  Holy 

Ghost's  authorship  of  the  Bible, 

n.  152 
Griffis,  W.  E.,  quoted,  257 
Griffith   John   College,   Hankow, 

n.  296 
Gunboat  policy,  The,  85 
Gutzlaff,  Rev.  Charles,  n.  73,  74- 

9.  85 

Halifax,  Lord,  on  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  n.  160 

Hall.  Fielding,  quoted,  258 

Hankow  University  scheme,  16, 
296,  297  seq. 

Happy  Moralist,  The,  by  Hubert 
Bland,  quoted,  n.  263 

Harmony,  Lack  of,  among  mis- 
sionaries,   99-100 

Harnack,  Dr.,  7,  27,  n.  94,  n.  99, 
n.  185-6 

Hart,  Sir  Robert,  on  the  Chinese 
character,  63,  n.  63-5 

Hearn,  Lafcadio,  quoted,  n.  276 

"Heathen,"  Objections  to  the 
word,  11-12 

Heathenism  under  the  Searchlight, 
quoted,  n.  81 

Hebrew  Religion  to  the  Establish- 
ment of  Judaism  under  Ezra, 
quoted,  229 

Hegel,  quoted,  31 

Hell,  133,  158-72,  266 

Henson,  Canon,  quoted,  4 


Hibbert  Journal,  The,  n.  5,  n.  6, 
n.  8,  n.  31,  n.  32,  n.  36,  n.  116, 
148,  n.  149,  n.  150,  n.  151,  259, 
n.  285,  n.  286,  n.  307,  n.  308, 
n.  309 

"Higher  Criticism,"  The,  in 
China,  271-2 

Hoben,  Allan,  quoted,  n.  260 

Holland,  Rev.  W.  E.  S.,  quoted, 
270 

Holy  Ghost,  Alleged  workings  of, 
114,  1 15-16,  n.  152 

Hongkong  University,  n.  295 

Hopps,  John  Page,  quoted,  n.  37, 
n.  116 

Horton,  Rev.  R.  F.,  quoted,  186- 
7,  188 

Hubert  on  Religion  and  Magic, 
n.  241 

Hue,  The  Abbe,  quoted,  250 

Human  Nature  in  Politics,  by 
Graham  Wallas,  quoted,  n.  251 

Human  Personality,  Myers',  quo- 
ted, 152,  n.  153,  182,  183,  184 

Humility,  Absence  of,  among 
Christians,  85,  96,  255,  279 

Hunt,  William  Remfrey,  quoted, 
80,  n.  80 

Huxley,  cited,  n.  12,  148,  229 

Hymnology,  Christian,  141,  171, 
n.  193,  245,  258-67 

Hypocrisy,  ^T,  212-13,  214 

I-CHiNG,  A  Buddhist  charm  intro- 
duced into  China  by,  240,  244 

Idea  of  a  Free  Church,  The,  n.  5, 
n.  30,  n.  57,  n.  128,  137,  149, 
n.  170,  n.  247 

Illingworth's  Reason  and  Revela- 
tion, quoted,  131,  n.  131 

Immodesty,  Chinese  and  Euro- 
pean views  of  what  constitutes, 
221 

Indemnities  paid  by  China,  53 

India's  Problems,  by  Dr.  J.  P. 
Jones,  quoted,^  269 

Infant  damnation,   168-72 

"Infidel,"  Huxley  and  Wace  on 
the  word,  n.  12 

Inge,  Prof.  W.  R.,  quoted,  13 1-2, 
n.   167,  n.   184 

Insincerity  of  theologians,  29-34, 
38-9.  59»  I47»  269,  280  seq., 
304  seq. 

Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  282  sef. 

International  Journal  of  Ethics, 
The,  n.  30,  n.  275 


Index 


317 


Intolerance    of    missionaries,    72 

seg[. 
"Invincible  ignorance,"  25 
Isaac  and  Abraham,  265 
Italy,  Free- thought  in,  9 

James,  Prof.  William,  7,  116,  117, 

n.  119,  178,  185,  n.  202 
Japan:  An  Interpretation,  by  Laf- 

cadio  Heam,  cited,  n.  276 
Japan,  British  AUiance  with,  23-4 
Japan,    Buddhism    in,   257 
Japan,  Christians  of,  n.  51 
Japan,  Patriotism  of,  273 
Japan,  Prospects  of  Christianity 

in,  21-4 
Japan,  Rise  of,  17,  290-1 
Japan,  the  Soul  of,  292 
Japan,  Trance-mediums  in,  189-90 
Jastrow's    Religion    of  Babylonia 

and  Assyria,  cited,  n.  152,  n.  241 
Jesus  and  "faith,"  176-8 
Jesus  as  a  healer,  177 
Jesus  or  Christ  ?   148-51 
Jevons,   F.  B.,    on    religion    and 

magic,  n.  241 
Johnston  Ross,  Rev.  G.  A.,  5 
Jones  Davies,  W.,  quoted,  n.  175 
Jones,  Dr.  J.  P.,  quoted,  269 
Jones,  Prof.  Henry,  4 
Judson  Brown,  Arthur,  quoted,  162 

Keble's  Christian  Year,  quoted, 
118 

Kneeling  at  prayer,  The  practice 
of,  226 

Knee-pads,  Use  of,  for  conveni- 
ence in  praying,  198 

Koran,  Claims  made  on  behalf  of 
the,  n.  283 

K'o-t'ou  (kowtow  or  kotow),  a 
Chinese  mode  of  reverential 
salutation,  222-7 

Kuling,  a  sanatorium  for  Euro- 
peans on  the  Yangtse,  299 

Lake,  Kirsopp,  cited,  n.  57 
Lamairesse,   M.,   quoted,  279 
Lamaism  a    travesty    of    Budd- 
hism, n.  83 
Lambuth,  D.  K.,  cited,  n.  153 
Latin,   Use  of,   in  liturgical  ser- 
vices, 244-7 
Laud,    Archbishop,    cited,    163 
Laws  of  Manu,  cited,  n.  244 


Lawsuits,  Interference  in  Chinese, 

49-54 
Le   Breton's   La   Resurrection  du 

Christ,  n.  57 
L'Empire  Chinois,  by  Lamairesse, 

quoted,  279 
Le  Roy,  cited,  7 

Leuba,  J.  H.,  on  magic  and  re- 
ligion, n.  241 
Liberty     of     Prophesying,       The, 

quoted,  n.  4  _ 
Life  of  Christ  in  Recent  Research, 

The,  by  Prof.  Sanday,  quoted, 

n.  175,  284 
Lilly,  W.  S.,  cited,  277 
Lindsay,    Prof.    T.    M.,    quoted, 

n.  283 
Literary  Guide,  The,  quoted,  n.  145 
Lloyd  Thomas,  Rev.  J.  M.,  6 
Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  quoted, 

245 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  7,  185,  n.  194 
Loisy,  M.,  7,  8,  38,  n.  57,  n.  149 
"Lord's  Day,"  see  Sabbath 
Lowell,  Percival,  cited,  n.  190 
Lowes,  Dickinson,  5 
Lu  Hills,  The,  299 
Luther  and  polygamy,  216 
Luther  and  the  Devil,  T46 
Lutheran  theology,  145,  146 

McCabe,  J.,  8,  n.  15,  n.  216 
MacColl,  Mr.  Hugh,  7,  135,  n.  141 
Macdonald,  J.  R.,  quoted,  n.  275 
Macintosh,  D.  C,  cited,  n.  7 
McTaggart,  Dr.,  4,  n.  132,   135, 

n.  135 
Madras,  Bishop  of,  quoted,  89 
"Magic,"  Christian,  202  seq.,  236, 

238   seq. 
Magie  dans  Vlnde,  La,  cited,  n.  241 
Malay  Magic,  Skeat's,  cited,  n.  242 
Man    and    the    Universe,    l3y    Sir 

Oliver  Lodge,  cited,  n.  194 
Manchuria,    Christian    "revival" 

in,  99  seq. 
Man's  Origin,  Destiny  and  Duty, 

by  Hugh  MacColl,  quoted,  135, 

n.  135 
Mars,  Water-supply  of  the  planet, 

197 
Martin,  Dr.  W.  A.  P.,  quoted,  n.  12 
Martyrdom   of  Man,    The,   cited, 

n.  131 
Materialism,  Rise  of,  307  seq. 
Mauss  on  religion  and  magic,  n. 

241 


3i8 


Index 


Medical  and  educational  mission- 
aries, Excellent  work  done  by, 
165-6,  294 

Meekness  and  humility,  Absence 
of,  in  Christendom,  85,  96,  255, 
279-80 

Mercer,  Right  Rev.  J.  Edward, 
Bishop  of  Tasmania,  quoted^ 
285-6,  287 

Messiah,  Modem  criticism  on  the 
alleged  claim  of  Jesus  to  be 
the,  n.  30 

Metaphors,  Use  of  ugly,  in  Christ- 
ian Hterature,  259-63,  265  seq. 

Miao  tribes,  Evangelisation  of  the, 
88^6,  268 

Michie,  Alexander,  quoted,  n.  72, 
203-204,  n.  247,  n.  254,  n. 
256,  279 

MiHtary  virtues  not  fostered  in 
China,   278-9 

Millard,  Rev.  B.  A.,  quoted,  246 

Miltonic  hypothesis  of  origin  of 
evil,  n.  136,  143 

Mind,  quoted,  n.  133,  n.  135 

Minucius  Felix,  cited,  168 

Miracles,  42, 139,  n.  186,212,271-2 

Missionaries  in  China,  Good  work 
done  by,  18-20,  40,  41,  165,  216, 
301 

Missionaries,  Number  of,  in 
China,  15-17,  n.  15,  n.  16 

Missionaries  in  China,  by  Alex- 
ander Michie,  quoted,  n.  72, 
203-4,  n.  247,  n.  254,  n.  256 

Missionary  activity.  Reasons  for, 
3  seq.  9  seq.,  12  seq.,  56-7,  n.  309 

Missions  and  Sociology,  by  T.  E. 
Slater,  quoted,  n.  14 

Missions  in  China,  Statistics  con- 
cerning, n.  15,  n.  16 

Modern  Substitutes  for  Christianity, 
quoted,  3 

Modern  Thought  and  the  Crisis  in 
Belief,  8 

Modernism,  8,  25,  n.  57 

Mohammedanism,  17,  n.  140,  176, 
251,  255,  273,  n.  283 

Monasticism,  82-4 

Montaigne,  quoted,  180,  n.  249 

Moody's    theology,^   168 

Moral  codes,  Diversity  in,  218  seq., 
273  seq. 

Moral  Education,  International 
Congress  on,  306 

Morals  and  Christianity,  24,  130, 
161,  265  seq.,  275,  307,  308-10 


Morals  and  religion,  3,  24  seq., 
264-6,  308-10,  and  see  Morals 
and  Christianity 

Mormon,  The  Book  of,  n.  283 

Morrison,  Dr.  G.  E.,  quoted, 
158-9 

Motives  of  converts  to  Christi- 
anity, 49  seq. 

Moule,  Bishop  Handley,  quoted^ 
138 

Muir,  Dr.  Pearson  McAdam, 
quoted,  n.  4 

Muirhead,  Prof.  J.  H.,  quoted,  n. 

307 

Muller,  Max,  quoted,  n.  176,  n.  194 
Murder,  Confessions  of,  at  Chinese 

"revivals,"  107-13 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  quoted,  152,  n. 

153,  182,  183,  184,  188 
Myth,     Magic,    and    Morals,   by 

Dr.  F.   C.   Conybeare,   quoted, 

n.  4,  25,  n.  57,  231,  n.  232 

Names,  Magical  efificacy  attri- 
buted to,  241  seq. 

Nassau,  R.  H.,  cited,  n.  153 

Nativity,  Legends  of  Christ's,  27, 
28 

Natural  Rights,  by  D.  G.  Ritchie, 
quoted,  n.  216-17,  265 

Nevius,  Dr.,  on  devil-possession, 

153 
Newbold,     Prof.     W.     Romaine, 

quoted,  153 
Newbolt,  Canon,  quoted,  n.  161 
New   Light   on   Old  Problems,  by 

John  Wilson,  cited,  n.  167 
New  Marcion,  A,  25 
"New  Theology,"  The,  8,  n.  142, 

144 
New  Theology,  The,  by  the  Rev. 

R.  J.  Campbell,  quoted,  n.  269 
New    Theology    Lectures,    by    the 

Bishop  of  Birmingham,  quoted, 

284 
New  Thought  Manual,  The,  quo- 
ted, n.  244 
Nineteenth  Century,  The,  quoted, 

n.  89 
North  China  Daily  NewSy  quoted, 

n.  99,  n.  208,  304 

Occult  Japan,  by  Percival  Lowell, 

cited,  n.  190 
Officials,    Difficulties  of   Chinese, 

vis-d-vis  Christian  missionaries, 

52-5 


Index 


319 


Old  Testament,  Use  of  the,  by  mis- 
sionaries,   35-6,    265,     284-6, 
287 
Om  (mystic  syllable),  240,  244 
Om  mane  padme  hum,  251 
Omito  Fo  (Chinese  invocation  of 

Amitabha  Buddha),  251 
Omnipotence  of  God,  132,  134-5 
Opium,     Campaign    against,     in 

China,  273 
Ormond,  Prof.  A.  T.,  quoted,  133 
Orpheus,    by    Salomon    Reinach, 

quoted,  n.   169,  n.  230 
Overland  China  Mail,  quoted,  n.  66 
Oxford  and   Cambridge    Univer- 
sities,    Characteristic    features 
of,    296-7 
Oxford,    Christianity  at,  4,   308- 
309 

Pagan,  Use  of  the  term,  12 

Pain,  Problem  of,  130  seq.,  134  seq. 

Papal  Christianity,  n.  149,  151, 
153,  n.  167,  210,  277,  279,  and 
see  Rome,  Church  of,  and  Cath- 
olic theology,  etc. 

Parker,  Prof.  E.  H.,  quoted,  71,  72 

Pascal,  quoted,  n.  229 

Pascendi  Grebis  (papal  encyclical), 

25 

Patriotism  in  China,  68,  273 
Paul,  St.,  on  women's  rights,  n. 

217 
Pearson,  Norman,  quoted,   191 
Peile,  Rev.  H.  F.,  quoted,  128 
Persecution,  Alleged,  of  Chinese 

Christians,   88-97 
Personal  Idealism  and  Mysticism, 
by  Prof.  W.  R.   Inge,   quoted, 
131,  n.  132,  n.  167,  n.  184 
Philosophers  of  China,  292-3 
Poets  of  China,  292-3 
Political  strength.  Necessary  pre- 
liminaries to  attainment  of,  13, 

44 
Polygamy  among  the  Jews,  216 
Polynesia,  Devil-possession  in,  152 
Pootoo    (Buddhist  sacred  island), 

75-7 
Port  Arthur,  Fall  of,  209 
Portugal,  Free-thought  in,  9 
Prayer,  42,  111-12,   139,    i73-90» 

191-211 
Prejudices,   Racial,   political,   so- 
cial,   and   religious,   218   seq. 
Present-day  Conditions  in  China, 


by  Marshall  Broomhall,  n.  16, 

n.  286 
Primitive  Culture,  by  Dr.  Tylor, 

quoted,  n.  91,  154 
"Progressive    Revelation,"     284, 

303  seq. 
Protestants,    Exorcism   of   devils 

by,  153,  155,  156 
Protestants   in    China,   Statistics 

concerning,  15  n.  16, 
Purves,  Rev.  D.,  quoted,  164 
Pusey,  Dr.,  cited,  168 

Quest,  The,  cited,  n.  150 

Rain,  Prayers  for,  193-7 
Rashdall,  Rev.  Dr.,  53,  n.  36,  57, 

61,  132,  n.  135,  159-60 
Rationalist  Press  Association,  The, 

6 
Rationalist  Press  Association,  An- 
nual, The,  150 
Rationalists  and  agnostics.  Moral 

principles  of,  3,  and  see   Morals 

and  Religion 
Reade,  Charles,  quoted,  140 
Real  Presence,  The,   30 
Reason    and    Revelation,    by    Dr. 

lUingworth,  quoted,  131,  n.  131 
"Reconciliations"    in   theological 

doctrine,  29-33,  38-9,  59,   147, 

269,  280  seq.,  395  seq. 
Reid,  Dr.  Gilbert,  n.  51 
Reinach,  Salomon,  quoted,  169,  230 
Reinterpretation  and  reconstruc- 
tion of  Christian  doctrines,  7, 

29-35.     38-9,    56,    57^,    I47» 

268-72,   280,   395   seq. 
Religion    and    Experience,    by    J. 

Brierley,    quoted,     188 
Religion    and    Magic,    Relations 

between,  240-42 
Religion  and  Morals,  3, 2/\.seq.,  and 

see    Morals  and    Religion    and 

Morals  and  Christianity 
Religion   of  all   Good   Men,    The, 

quoted,  5,  n.  260,  n.  305-6,  n. 

309-10 
Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 

by  Jastrow,  quoted,  n.  152,  n. 

241 
Religion  of  China,  by  Dr.  Edkins, 

quoted,  73,  n.  73,  74,  289 
Religions  of  Japan,  The,  by  W.  E. 

Griffis,  quoted,  257-8 
Resurrection,  Dogma  of  the,  28,30, 

n.  57.  58,  281,  n.  309 


320 


Index 


Review  of  Reviews,  quoted,  n.  201, 

n.  277 
Revivalism,  41,  59,  98  seq. 
Richard,  Rev.  Timothy,  306-7 
Rickaby,    Rev.    Father,     quoted, 

151 
Ritchie,  D.  G.,  quoted,  n.  216-17, 

n.  265 
Roberts,  Rev.  R.,  149-52 
"Rock  of  Ages,"  261 
Rome,  Church  of,  8,  n.  16,  25,  100, 

136,  n.  149,  151,  153-4,  156-7, 

n.  167,  n.  206,  244-5,  247,  250- 

51,  280,  282,  283 
Rome,  Hidden  name  of,  242 
Ross,  Rev.  G.  A.  Johnston,  5 

Sabatier,   Paul,  cited,  31 
Sabbatarianism,  76-7,  228  seq. 
Sabbath,  The,  228-37 
Sacred  books  of  Brahmanism  and 

Mohammedanism,  n.  283 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  cited,  n. 

244  _ 
Salvation  denied  to  the  heathen, 

161-72,  and  see   Damnation  of 

Unbelievers 
San  Thom^  and  Principe,  Slavery 

in,  275 
Sanday,  Prof.,  25,  n.  175,  284 
Satan,  25,  100,  130  seq.,  136  seq., 

140-44,  145  seq.,  154-5, 156-7 
Satan,  Roman  Catholics  alleged  to 

be  emissaries  of,  25,  100,  156 
Saunders,  A.  R.,  quoted,   108-12, 

n.  114 
Scandinavian  demonology,  145-6 
Schmid,  Rudolf,  J,  n.  233 
Schmidt,  Nathaniel,  n.  30 
Schmiedel,  7 
Schofield,   Dr.  A.  T.,  quoted,   n. 

177-8  . 
Schools    in    China,    44,    and    see 

Education  in  China 
Science  and    Christian    Tradition, 

cited,  n.  12,  n.  148,  179 
Science    and    Hebrew    Tradition, 

cited,  n.  229 
Science,  Chinese  zeal  for  Western, 

44-9 
Scientific  Creed  of  a   Theologian, 

The,  by  Rudolf  Schmid,  n.  233 
Scientific    Fact   and    Metaphysical 

Reality,  by  R.  B.  Arnold,  quoted, 

n.  183-4 
Scotland,  Alienation  from  Christ- 
ianity in,  3-4 


Scotland  not  the  most  sober  coun- 
try in  Europe,  213 
Scotsman,  The,  newspaper,  auoted^ 

17,  n.  17 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  245 
Selbie,  Rev.  W.  B.,  n.  6 
Seneca  on  Prayer,  n.  179 
Sexual  morality  in  China,  214-17 
Shanghai  Missionary  Conference, 

The,  of  1907,  15 
Shuttleworth,  Rev.  E.  S.,  quoted, 

n.  259 
Siam,  Buddhism  in,  257 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  quoted,   268-9 
"Sin,"  Christian  notions  of,  loi- 

103 
Sinlessness,  Alleged,  of  Jesus,  150 
Skeat's  Malay  Magic,    cited,    n. 

242 
Slater,  T.  E.,  quoted,  n.  14 
Smith,  Rev.  A.  H.,  quoted,  n.  273 
Smith,  Rev.  George,  on  the  Chi- 
nese character,  n.  63-5 
Smoking  prohibited  by  Christian 

missionaries,  212-13 
Social  Life  of  the  Chinese,  by  Rev. 

J.   Doolittle,   quoted,  n.   63,   n. 

147,  287,  n.  287 
Sociological  Review,   The,  quoted, 

n.  241 
Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs  in  China, 

66 
Soltau,  Wilhelm,  7 
Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  quoted, 

n.  4,  n.  132,  n.  135 
Some  Problems   of  Existence,   by 

Norman   Pearson,    quoted,    191 
Soul-study,  292 
Spain,  Free-thought  in,  9 
Spectator,  The,  quoted,  211,  264, 

n.  268 
Spurgeon,  Theology  of,  142,   168, 

304 
Statistics  of  Christianity  in  China, 

15-16 
Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  cited,  n.  167, 

170 
Stepney,  Bishop  of,  cited,  n.  309 
Stock,  Mr.  St.  George,  quoted,  31 
Stocker's   New   Thought  Manual, 

quoted,  n.  244 
Sturt,  Henry,  quoted,  4,  n.  30,  30, 

38,  n.  39,  n.  57,  128,  n.  137,  n. 

149,  n.  170,  n.  247 
Subliminal  Consciousness,  Theory 

of  the,  1 16-17,  182  seq. 
Sunday,  see  Sabbath 


Index 


321 


Super-Devil,  Hypothesis  of  a,  144 
"Sweet  music  in  the  roof,"  122 

Taboo,  The  Sabbath  a  Jewish  and 

Christian,  229 
Taoist  charms  in  China,  239-40, 

243-4      ^. 

Tasmania,  Bishop  of,  quoted,  284- 
5,  286 

Telepathy-j  187  seq.,  191  seq. 

Temperance  inculcated  by  Christ- 
ian missionaries,  212  seq. 

Tennyson,  quoted^  84-5,  193,  n. 
247,  278 

Tertullian's  doctrine  of  hell,  168 

These  jrom  the  Land  of  Sinim, 
quoted,  64,  n.  64 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  23-4,  281-2 

Ti-tsang  Bodhisatva,  Alleged  mir- 
acle-working at  the  tomb  of,  177 

Tibetan  prayer- wheel,  251 

Times,  The,  quoted,  n.  160-61, 
209,  n.  276,  n.^  293,  295,  n.  309 

Tolerance,  Religious,  of  Chinese, 
47-9,  71  seq. 

Townsend,  Meredith,  quoted,  n.  9 

Transubstantiation,  Catholic  doc- 
trine of,  280^ 

Tree- worship  in  China,  91-2 

Tsai  Li  Abstinence  Society,  213 

Tuckett,  Ivor,  quoted,  145-6 

Tylor's  Primitive  Culture,  quoted, 
n.  91,  154 

Tyrrell,  Father  George,  quoted, 
31.  38-9 

United  States  of  America,  Mur- 
ders in  the,  277;  indifference  to 
human  life  in,  278 

United  Universities  Scheme,  16, 
n.  293,  295-311 

Universities,  English,  Christi- 
anity in  the,  4,  308-9 

University  in  Central  China,  see 
United   Universities   Scheme 

"Upgrade  theology,"  304,  305 

Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 

The,  quoted,  n.  116,  n.  117,  n. 

119,  n.  178,  n.  202 
Vedic  scriptures,  Claims  made  on 

behalf  of  the,  n.  283 
Village  Life  in  China,  by  Rev.  A. 

H.  Smith,  quoted,  273 
Vindication  of  the  Bull  ''Aposto- 

liace  Curae,"  quoted,  n,3i,n.28o 
Vivian,     Philip,    quoted,    n.    129, 

n.  131,  n.  196-7,  n.  216,   n.  305 


Wage,  Dr.,  n.  12 

Wallas,  Graham,  quoted,  n.  251 

Wang  Ch'ung,  Chinese  philoso- 
pher, cited,  n.  34 

Warschauer,    Dr.,    25 

Watson,  William,  quoted,  311 

Weather,  Prayers  relating  to,  193 
seq. 

Webster,  Rev.  James,  quoted,  99- 
loi,  122 

Weinel,  7 

Wenley,  Prof.,  7 

Wemle,  7 

Westcott,  Bishop,  quoted,  n.  196 

Western  civilisation.  Dangers  a- 
head  of,  13  seq.,  16  seq.,  165 
seq.,  293,  n.  3097IO 

Western  education  in  China,  290- 
312 

Western  literature  in  China,  Cir- 
culation of,  294 

Western  nations.  Causes  of  pros- 
perity of,  274 

Wlmt  is  Christianity  ?  by  Hamack, 
quoted,  n.   185-6 

White,  Dr.  Gilbert,  25 

White  Deer  Grotto,  The,  299 

White  Man's  Work  in  Asia  and 
Africa,  The,  by  Leonard  Al- 
ston, quoted,  n.  275,  n.  306 

Wideness  of  God's  Mercy,  The, 
quoted,  163 

Williams'  Middle  Kingdom,  quo- 
ted, n.  223-4 

Wilson,  Dr.  William,  47 

Wilson,  John,  cited,  n.  167 

Wilson,  Ven.  Archdeacon,  quoted, 
n.  129 

Wine-miracle  at  Cana  of  Galilee, 
212 

Witchcraft,  Christianity  regarded 
as  a  kind  of,  236,  238  seq. 

Woman's  Work  in  the  Far  East, 
quoted,  n.  loi,  n.  126,  n.  128, 
162,  n.  216,  221 

Women,  Position  of,  under  Christ- 
ianity,  n.   216 

Word-magic,  241-50 

World  Missionary  Conference 
(1910),  16-17 

Wundt  on  Religion  and  Magic, 
n.  241 


Yi-mo-nen-li  (Emmanuel),  239, 
240,  251 


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Luke  the  Physician 

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An  attempt  by  one  of  the  greatest  living  theologians  to  weigh  in 
the  scales  the  opposition  between  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  historical 
schools  in  their  relation  to  the  constitution  of  the  Church  and  the 
history  of  ecclesiastical  law. 

A  Scientific  Study  of  the  Old 
Testament 

Its  Principal  Results,  and  their  Bearing  upon 
Religious  Instruction 

By  Rudolf  Kittel 

Professor  of  the  University  at  Leipzig 

With  12  Plates  and  Sketches  in  the  Text,    $i,^o  net 

This  volume  is  devoted  to  the  results  of  Old  Testament  research 
in  the  antiquarian,  literary,  and  historic  fields,  and  is  non-technical 
in  form  and  popular  in  style,  though  scientific  in  substance. 

The  Religion  of  Israel 

By  Alfred  Loisy 
Professor  of  the  History  of  Religions  at  the  College  de  France 

An  account  of  the  mental,  moral,  and  theological  development  of 
the  Jewish  people,  as  shown  in  their  Sacred  books,  when  those  books 
are  read  and  interpreted  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge. 


New  York  Q.  P.  Putnam's  Sons      London 


Date  Due 

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